


The Worst is Now the Victor

by AmityRavenclawElf



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: All These Victors Need Help, Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, Sea Three as Mentors, Some angst, Stuff Like What Happened to Finnick as a Victor, canon-typical manipulation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2019-07-23 23:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16169162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmityRavenclawElf/pseuds/AmityRavenclawElf
Summary: Uma, Harry, and Gil are all victors of the Hunger Games. And the life of a victor sucks. But they can get through it together.





	1. Chapter 1

Being honest with himself, Gil wasn't completely surprised when Uma Triskelion beckoned him over.

The room they were in was loud and full of food and alcohol. They had, all of them, only just arrived in the Capitol today, but most of the other mentors were old friends by now, so the "festivities" had started up rather immediately. That was what happened when you forced a lot of people with similar kinds of trauma together. That or crying hysterics, and there was some of that here, too.

It was the first day of Gil's second year as a mentor. Last year, he had been (as his much-older fellow mentor for District 10 later informed him) too much of a shrinking violet (although she hadn't used the phrase "shrinking violet"); he had barely looked up from his knees in most of these mentor gatherings. Even still, he'd noticed that Uma Triskelion occasionally glanced at him with what could only be described as "interest", although he couldn't imagine what kind.

That made sense. Uma, Gil, and Uma's fellow mentor for District 4, Harry Hook, were the three youngest mentors here by far: barely past reaping age. Most of the others were in their thirties or forties, and some were much older still. Younger victors usually didn't become mentors until they absolutely had to, but all three of them had become mentors the year after winning: Uma at fourteen, Harry at seventeen, Gil at eighteen.

This year, Gil wasn't looking at his knees; he sat up straight and made eye contact.

Uma beckoned him over, and he compliantly went to sit on the soft, purple couch (So much softer than anything they had in 10, even in the Victors' Village!) beside her.

He waited for her to speak; eventually, with her gaze fixed on Harry where he was drunkenly dancing across the room, she said, "Happy Hunger Games."

Even he picked up on the irony in her words. He tried to be ironic back: "May the odds be...Well, I guess not in _your_ favor, because we're competing. I mean, our tributes are competing. Um...Happy Hunger Games. I guess."

A corner of Uma's mouth rose. "I guess," she echoed indulgently. She was sitting like a queen, with one leg crossed over the other, one arm straight with her hand flat on the sofa, the other arm bent at the elbow and holding a wine glass full of something multicolored. The fabric of her dress was shimmery and oceanic and bore a long slit up the side of the skirt. Her hair was braided and blue and draped daintily over one shoulder.

The men of the Capitol wanted her. Gil wasn't sure how long they had wanted her; something in the vague hauntedness of her resting demeanor made him think it had been a long time. He remembered watching the interview after Harry won _his_ Games, watching him run up to his mentor on live television and kiss her, hard, on the mouth. And Uma had kissed him back, just as hard. The Capitol audience had eaten up the unexpected twist and the pair's palpable thirst, but Gil wondered if there was more to it. And he wondered if attaching himself to someone was the way to be safe; he had seen his share of Capitol citizens licking their lips as he passed, like the wolves in the stories his mother had told him when he'd cried about skinning the cows. ("Animals are no more innocent than we are, Gillyflower. You have to remember that.")

Whenever Harry or Uma was in front of a camera, the other was always with them. Usually, they were kissing, _not_ chastely, and Uma was running her hands through Harry's hair or Harry was caressing Uma's face or somehow both. Any time Caesar Flickerman interviewed them, Uma was on or across Harry's lap and they had some story to tell, with unabashed grins, about a cocky boy from their district who made the mistake of flirting with Uma and had his face destroyed by Harry, or, at times, the other way around. Everyone knew that they were possessive of each other. Everyone knew that Harry's house in Victor's Village belonged to his sisters, and he stayed with Uma in privacy, since she had no remaining family (her mother dead since before Harry won). Wickedly, they teased the crowds when Caesar asked if there would be a wedding in their future. "Wouldn't you like to know, Caesar." "Guess we'll just have to see, won't we?" And then she pretended to bite him. The viewers loved it, devoured their love for each other heartily, greedily. Lustfully.

"We both thought you'd kill Fleet," Uma said, suddenly and with a slightly somber tone. "You didn't."

"No," Gil agreed uncomfortably. Fleet had been one of the ones from _her_ district. Scrawny and confused, wandering into all the wrong places.

"You could have."

"I didn't want to."

"Lots of people don't want to kill but do it anyway."

Gil nodded and was quiet for a while. Fleet had made himself too easy a target, obliviously stumbling into the Careers' campsite. He was lucky that Gil had been the one guarding for the night. "He still died."

"Yes. But you didn't kill him."

He could hear the cannons, feel the marsh under his feet, trying to suck him in with every footfall as he fled his last opponent, praying that he wouldn't have to kill her. The marsh had been poisonous; the skin of his legs had remained inflamed until his victory, when the Capitol made it brand new. Sometimes he wondered if it was still his skin or if they'd given him new, synthetic skin. He was too scared to ask.

"Do you drink?" Uma digressed, indicating a whole bottle full of the strange, swirly substance that she was imbibing from her glass.

"Sometimes," Gil said cautiously. "Not around people I don't know."

"Fair rule," Uma relented. "I avoided this rainbow piss for as long as I could, but I can't help that it tastes like good dreams." She trailed off as if distracted. Her eyes narrowed suddenly. "Harry!" she called out.

Harry Hook was lying down flat on a table while two of the middle-aged mentors poured liquor from two different flasks into his open mouth. He was holding both his thumbs up. But when he heard Uma calling for him, he batted away the flasks and sat up, causing two separate streams of liquor to run down his shirt, front and back. His omnipresent eyeliner was smeared, and his hair was dripping, and the liquor made his white shirt transparent so that one could see the tattoos snaking over his arms and chest. Teal and red shone through the milky sheen.

He pushed past the other victors and plopped clumsily down on Uma's other side. "Hello again, my love," he sighed out. He spoke with an accent. Seemingly everyone from his specific region of 4 spoke that way; his sisters did, in interviews. Uma did not have the same accent; she had been raised in a different part of the district.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked him exasperatedly, ruffling his soaked locks and earning a purr in response.

"Taking my medicine," Harry said, his eyelids fluttering closed. "So I can deal with those prissy roaches tomorrow morning."

Gil tensed at his words, deeply aware that there were cameras and microphones everywhere that were picking up Harry's scorn. Uma took it in stride:

"You're gonna be hungover," she said. "Gil, tell him what you told me."

She made eye contact with him, penetratingly and expectantly. And Harry made eye contact with him, fiercely and curiously.

"W-which thing?" Gil stuttered out.

"About drinking," Uma said patiently.

"Oh! I, uh, don't drink around people I don't know."

"Aye, that is a good policy," Harry said, wearing an expression like he was evaluating Gil and wasn't yet displeased. "But my fellow mentors are hardly strangers." He rested his face on Uma's shoulder; Gil had seen enough of them, by now, to know that drunkenness made Harry kind of droopy and even more affectionate. Uma, on the rare occasions that she drank a lot, became angry and ranted on tabletops, saying things that Gil was surprised hadn't gotten her arrested. Then again, maybe her thick, sugary sarcasm protected her. ("We ought to thank our **dear** President Snow for **bringing** us here.")

(Harry's anger came out when he was sober. Gil remembered the chariot rides the year of Harry's Games, remembered watching the District 4 chariot carrying a nondescript girl in a dress covered with nets and, beside her, Harry, age sixteen, already pretty but certainly too young to be dressed in only nets and seashells. He remembered how Harry had glared into the camera, fists balled, as he was displayed around the stadium; glared so hard that his eyes became moist by the time the proceedings ended. It had earned him some sponsors, that glare. And probably lost him some, too.)

"They're certainly not your friends," Uma said gravely. "They were trying to drown you."

"So what?" Harry slurred coyly.

Uma smirked. "So, only _I'm_ allowed to drown you, darling."

Harry barked out a laugh that gargled a little bit, and Uma kept smirking and sipped at her colorful drink.

"Why'd you call me over here?" Gil asked, and the deep brown eyes landed on him again.

She wasn't looking at him like he was a commodity, or an accessory to some plan; it was like she could see his soul. Like she could see his soul and didn't hate what she saw. "Because you're like us," she answered. "Not okay."

It shook him to his core, and made his eyes prickle. He had been raised to say "I'm okay" whenever he was hurt; say "I'm okay", and you can keep working, so the family can keep eating. And then, being reaped and winning the Games...it was taboo for a victor to say or even indicate that they were damaged by the experience. He didn't even know what would be done to him if he shattered the Capitol audience's illusion that victors lived glamorous, worry-free lives; that the ones who became alcoholics or addled themselves beyond recognition with drugs were outliers or strange characters. Having someone calmly acknowledge that he wasn't okay...Someone who understood...He took a deep breath. "But no one here is okay," he pointed out weakly.

"It's different for them, though," Uma said. "They're all jaded. They've suffered so long, they've forgotten that things could be different."

There was a light in her eyes that made Gil wonder if she _was_ drunk after all. It felt like she was making _him_ drunk; her candid words and her coarse-velvet voice made him feel warm. "What do you mean 'different'?"

Uma smiled. Then she kissed his cheek, and Harry whined for her attention back, and Gil was so enchanted, so fixated on these two people who seemed near-otherworldly in their ability to be Alive after everything that had been done, that he didn't even fully notice Uma pressing something into his hand.

It was a seashell, he discovered later on when he stopped being drunk on Harry's laugh and Uma's eyes and bothered to uncurl his fingers. A big one, from District 4, he supposed. He didn't get to really look at it until he had retired to his quarters for the night and held the shell under a lamp. Then he knew instantly that it wasn't from District 4, or not directly at least; it was painted neon _purple_. Even if painting shells was a common hobby in 4, no one in the districts could afford the color purple.

This was a decorative trinket for Capitol citizens. A more beautiful recreation of what was raw and belonged to District 4; seashells had probably become fashionable after Uma's victory, and probably again after Harry's. The biggest shells from the seabeds of 4 collected and gilded to feed the trends.

And Uma had owned it, for some reason, and had given it to _him_. Probably to be ironic, as always.

Gil set the shell on his bedside table and tried to force sleep even though his mind was a whirlwind of Harry and Uma and inexplicable anger over a painted shell.

 

He didn't get much opportunity to talk to Uma or Harry in the time that followed. They shared glances and even small smiles when they passed each other, but Gil was too busy trying to help his tributes survive. Trying desperately. _Survive, survive, please, this time, one of you, please survive._

They didn't, and neither did the ones from 4.

He and Harry and Uma drank together.

"They were never gonna make it," Uma said between shots. "Too young, too scrawny; at least it was quick. I bet they could still taste the Capitol food."

Both of theirs and one of Gil's had died in the first bloodbath by the Cornucopia. Gil's second tribute, the tiny girl with the defiant set to her jaw, the girl whose mother raised chickens and geese, had taken a machete through the eye socket about two hours ago, if that.

"I feel like I didn't do enough," Gil confessed tearfully.

"Don't y'blame yourself," Harry ordered.

"I was useless. I barely knew anything to say to them, except to get water and make allies. They were just so small, it felt hopeless, and I couldn't... _think_ right..."

"You didn't kill them," Uma said. "It's like they were thrown off a cliff, and you had to try to be their parachute- slow down their fall just enough that they land on all the other bodies." She downed another shot. "Capitol music _sucks!"_ She smacked the radio and glowered at it as if it had personally wronged her.

 _"You_ could sing for us, love," Harry said.

Uma grunted irately in response.

"I don't want to keep watching them die." There was a desperation growing in Gil as he blurted out what he'd been feeling since hearing the cannons. "I don't want to do this anymore. I can't. I know there's no other male victor from 10 who's alive, but I can't do this anymore, or I'll end up like...like the morphlings or something!"

"Breathe, mate," Harry said earnestly, massaging at one of Gil's shoulders. It was weird to see Harry be earnest. But then, he wasn't very drunk yet. (To his credit, Gil was pretty sure that Harry hadn't gotten drunk at all since their first night here; he had been trying to help his tributes just as much as all of them. His scrawny, doomed tributes.) "Snow's got to melt one day."

Gil wasn't sure if he was speaking figuratively or if he was making a definitely-illegal statement about President Snow, and it must have showed on his face, because Harry grinned cryptically.

"That's what makes spring come early," Uma added once she had swallowed her mouthful of drink, in a by-rote tone as if this was a ritual for them, this exchange of words.

Next thing Gil knew, he and Harry were dancing together to the crappy Capitol music, their movements sappy and circular, Harry's touch meaningful but not licentious, and Uma was cheering them on and occasionally joining in. He felt powerfully that he had become a part of them, and they a part of him. And the caretaking instinct in him, still bleeding over his dead tributes, patched itself up, reshaped itself around _Keep Harry from passing out and bumping his head_ and _Stop Uma's ranting before she gets herself turned into an Avox_.

"This is what they want," Uma growled out, stomping the countertop. "They want us to grieve them every time, and they want us to rage to each other, because as long as we're raging to each other, we aren't raging against them!"

"Uma, please get down," Gil sighed, but the plea vibrated from a delirious laugh; he was pretty drunk, too.

"You're worried about me," Uma said, smiling and throwing her head back. "Harry, look; he's worried about me."

"I love you, I love you both," Harry slurred, stumbling and tripping over his feet.

"I love you, too, but that's your last one," Gil said, forcing the bottle out of Harry's hand and making him sit down on the giant bean bag on the floor. He noticed what he'd said, then, and marveled at how the drinking had loosened his tongue.

"Help me down," Uma said, stretching out her arms imperiously, and Gil opened his own arms and swooped Uma through the air, and when her feet touched the floor, she started dancing again to the music she hated. "They're so scared of us," she grumbled intermittently. "They know we could..." But she never finished _that_ sentence; always trailed off. Even drunk, she wasn't stupid. She knew there were lines she couldn't cross. She danced angrier, and Gil with her. They were clammy, and clumsy, and they lingered tipsily in physical contact.

The radio bubbled out:

_"Dye my skin the color of rain  
And mark my body with your name  
Dye my skin volcanic red  
And wash away the markings_

_Dye my skin the color of grain  
I only feel the same, the same  
And you have flown clean from my head  
I always lose the dark things"_

Uma joined in for the second verse, but she sang the wrong words: _"Dye my breath the color of pain,"_ and _"We only keep the dark things."_ She sang with confidence, though, clean over the Capitol singer's babyish lilt. Uma had a nice voice; it was rough, but it was strong and perfect.

"Isn't that one of yours?" Gil asked Harry. All the victors had to have a hobby, and since Harry's hobby couldn't be Uma (He'd asked, on _live television_. Caesar had been a bit flustered, which was saying something.), he was instead a songwriter for Capitol artists.

"Not really," Harry said, still draped ungracefully over the bean bag but now sitting up on his elbow. "They made me change the words; mine were too sad, they said."

"Sadder than this?"

Harry smiled tiredly as the ballad reached its bridge and started to crescendo. Uma took Gil's hand and spun him, which was no easy task for someone of her size.

It was a night of tears and twirls and anguish and sloppy kisses, of Harry's laugh and Uma singing different words to the same songs. A servant woke them up the next morning; they were all properly unconscious and drooling on each other and the bean bag. Two of Uma's braids had ended up in Gil's mouth, and Harry had an arm snaked tightly around each of them.

Uma turned alert and sat up instantly, whereas Gil laid there awhile, blinking, and Harry kept his eyes closed entirely and gave no indication that he was even awake, save a groan of protest.

Gil watched Uma take in the situation, her head tilted slightly to the side as she calmly thought something over. Then he watched the startled servant person awkwardly gather up their emptied glasses and bottles and make a brisk exit.

"Well, Snow definitely knows now," Uma yawned out once the servant had left the room.

"Knows what?" Gil asked, rubbing his eyes. Harry's eyeliner had rubbed all over the side of Uma's neck. It was probably on Gil somewhere, too, but there was no mirror, so he couldn't see it.

With a smirk, Uma helped him to his feet and softly answered, "That you're ours."

A pleasurable chill the likes of which he had never experienced went up Gil's spine while Uma worked to get Harry up.

 

They spent the remaining duration of the Games in each other's company as the last five, four, three, two tributes were narrowed down to one victor. Uma and Harry kept up a running commentary, somehow intensely invested even though their tributes were gone.

"Think it'll be him?" Harry asked, the light of the screen reflected on his face.

"He's strong enough to win," Uma said noncommittally. "I don't know if he's strong enough to be a victor, though. He's built up his bravado too much; they'll crush him if he cracks and they'll spend him if he doesn't."

"He's been open about loving his family," Harry said. "If he does win, Snow will own him, easy."

The tribute they were talking about had his head bashed in thirty minutes later. Neither of them flinched, but Uma made a sympathetic sound, and Harry sat closer and closer to the screen as the Games went on until Uma made him sit back to keep from hurting his eyes.

Gil tried to watch as shallowly as possible; he started shaking whenever he was in too deep. Uma held his hand, and she gave it a squeeze whenever he started to breathe a bit fast.

"Snow's gotta melt one day," she said to him quietly.

"That's what makes the spring come early," he recited back.

One of the few times he was off on his own (in pursuit of a bathroom, as it happened), he was waylaid by a familiar puffy-lipped man in a loudly-patterned suit with a white rose pierced through its lapel.

"P-President Snow," Gil observed, doing an awkward sort of bow.

The president's mouth curved into a disturbing smile. His posture was perfect, and not a hair on his head was out of place. "Mr. Legume. We haven't spoken much, since your victory."

"No, I guess we haven't," Gil agreed warily.

"Won't you walk with me?" That wasn't a choice. _Boy_ was it not a choice. They walked. "How have these two years treated you?"

He kept his eyes on the hallway decor and wondered if throwing up would excuse him from this conversation. "I've...been eating a lot better."

"So I see; you're a fit young man." The president's voice was _too_ perfect, too syrupy, like a voice concocted in a lab and then placed carefully inside him. "Everyone's talking about how well you've filled out since your Games. I can't tell you how many of my partners and associates have been _clamoring_ for a chance at your companionship."

Gil's insides froze. It was happening. It was happening now. He'd been (comparatively) free for a time, but now it was happening. He kept his eyes moving for any escape, and blessing of blessings, he found one: "I actually have to use the bathroom," he said, pointing to the lavatory before they could pass it. "Is...that okay?"

President Snow's eyes were like shark eyes, probably. Gil had never seen a shark, but he knew the look of a predator. "Certainly, Gilbert," he said, his tone silken. No resistance; you didn't keep fighting when the mouse was already in the trap.

From then on, Gil went nowhere alone. He stuck with Harry and Uma without fail, timing his bathroom breaks with Harry's and ensuring that he was beside at least one of them at any given time.

"Seriously, Gil, what's wrong?" Uma asked when Gil waking up from a nap to find both of them absent (Uma having stepped out momentarily for a chat with another mentor and Harry having gone for food) resulted in something close to a panic attack.

"Nothing," Gil wheezed out unconvincingly.

She placed her palm against his cheek. Her hands were somewhat calloused, a comforting texture that he leaned into instinctively. "Gil?" she probed.

"I just get scared," he said, half-true.

She accepted this answer, probably gathering some, if not all, of what couldn't be said aloud, and accommodated it with her presence, as much as she could. As did Harry.

Their remaining time together was filled with snatches of Games footage when Gil had the constitution to look at the screen, meals in which they joked around to try to forget for a moment that kids were killing each other, and long conversations through the night and the quiet moments.

He learned that sometimes Uma was a _sad_ drunk instead of an angry drunk. She murmured stories into his collarbone as they drifted off; stories that he could never quite remember when he woke up, only retaining a feeling of protective outrage and a deep sense that his assumptions had been right.

Uma was usually the one who woke up early enough to bring them breakfast, and Harry was usually the one to bring in the rest of the day's meals, as it was easy for them to forget to eat. They were still growing into it, but they had their rhythm.

But eventually, the Games ended.

Uma let out a shaky breath when the last tribute was killed, leaving only the victor. _Gil_ tightened his grip on _her_ hand. Harry stared intently at the screen until the footage cut away.

The interviews with the victor came and went, and the "festivities" dissolved.

Out in the deceptively-warm air on a deceptively-blue day, they said their goodbyes.

"Thank you," Gil said, and _kept_ saying until Uma gently covered his mouth.

"Let us know if anyone tries anything," she said, just loudly enough that the very nearest Capitol citizens in the crowd seeing them off could probably hear her. "Anyone. You _tell_ us, alright? Swear to me you'll tell us."

"I swear," Gil answered, hoarsely, into her hand.

"Remember, we've been at this longer than you have," Harry said, more confidentially. His eyeliner was especially thick today, and he had been drinking up until the very last minute, which meant that he wore a slight lazy smile even as his eyes bore solemnly into Gil's. "We can take care of you."

Gil couldn't imagine that was true, but still he leaned in and let Harry's arms trick him into feeling safe; he left some tears behind in the crook of Harry's neck when he pulled away.

Uma and Harry left on their train first, and they both kissed Gil right out in the open, and the Capitol audience _screamed_ and kept screaming even after the train had disappeared with them on it. Gil stared after them, at the faint horizon, and tried to ignore the feeling that President Snow was eyeing him from his pedestal. Harry and Uma had done their part to take him off the menu; he would have to believe that was enough, because worrying otherwise would take him apart.

Then Gil got on his train with his fellow mentor from 10 and the heavy absence of the tributes they'd failed. The broadcasts took a break from discussing the newest victor to buzz about Uma Triskelion and Harry Hook and Gil Legume. People were very excited by the kiss, by the blush in his cheeks, by the seashell in his hand. Correspondents asked, _"Is this legal? Can they...? You know! They're from separate districts, I mean." "We heard what Uma said, but what did Harry say?" "I don't care if it's legal or not; not only do I want them to all get married: I want footage of the wedding night."_ Gil found a room on the train where the "news" wasn't playing, and he curled up and slept, in sporadic intervals. The Capitol was always taking what didn't belong to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (True story, some of this came out more sexual-sounding than I had originally intended. I'm cursed with the power of innuendo. Like, some stuff was specifically deliberately implied, of course, but some of it was a total accident at first. Basically, if it's an innuendo, it's an accident; if it's an implication, it's not. For the most part. If that makes sense. Idk. COMMENT PLEASE! Like, if you just list the things you liked, I would love it!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some mentions of verbal abuse.

Winter was the only time of year in which Uma stayed in bed for as long as Harry did.

Their house in Victors' Village had a heater, but they rarely used it; when she had first moved in here, Uma had tried to house every child from her old neighborhood and the next few neighborhoods surrounding it, but she had been found out by the Peacekeepers and was now subjected to random house inspections to be sure that she wasn't giving comfort to those who hadn't "earned" it. Since they couldn't share the heat with everyone, they went without it most of the time.

Harry liked waking up to the cold, both because it symbolized Uma's fierce moral compass and because it meant he got to open his eyes and see her curled up close to him. Today, the world was entirely white outside the bedroom window, and she was framed in the dreamlike pale haze, a bundle in the bedcovers, her limbs all pulled close to her torso. Still asleep, and even sleeping _well_ , from the looks of it, which was a rarity.

He listened to her breathing, knowing full well that the sound of an Uma at ease was a caliber of song he could never hope to write and would sell to no one even if he could. It was almost enough to lull him back to sleep, but it was harder to get to sleep, nowadays; both of them had gotten used to feeling a third weight on the bed with them, and it had become slightly uncomfortable to sleep without it. Without him.

Someone banged on the bedroom door, causing Harry to sit bolt upright, reflexively shielding Uma with his body, and Uma to vault over him, instantly awake, and fling the door open with the knife they kept between their mattress and headboard tightly in hand.

On the other side of the door, fist still raised for more vigorous knocking, was a dark-haired girl in her twenties, dressed in the loose flannel shirt typical to the people who worked on the water and a pair of thick, dull pants that had belonged to their father and only stayed around her waist thanks to the rope with which she tied it in place. (Faintly, and despite her scrubbing and scrubbing it over the years, there was still a vomit stain on one of the knees.)

"Harriet?" Uma sighed, relaxing her shoulders and lowering the knife from shoulder-level to hip-level.

"How'd yeh get in? We keep the door-" Harry was trailing off even before his sister interrupted him, because he noticed her frazzled expression:

"Snow is here. He's in our house. Come on." Then she turned on her heels and departed without a glance to see if he was following.

He was.

Catching the sweater Uma threw at him and pulling it on as he walked, stepping into his boots on his way out the door, Harry sprinted across snow about four inches deep and through the front door, which Harriet was holding open for him, to the house that was technically his, right across the street.

The entryway was full of the president's security staff.

"Where's CJ?" he whispered.

"Where d'yeh think?" Harriet hissed back.

Harry's already-balled fists clenched tighter. Snow could not have made his message clearer with a pencil and pad. The president _knew_ where Harry and Uma stayed; he could have visited them at their actual home, but instead he had come _here_. Instead he'd sent Harriet to fetch them while Calista Jane, still Games age, stayed behind.

Harry took a second to breathe, the better to ensure he didn't attempt to stab the president with a ballpoint pen as soon as he saw him, and looked over his shoulder to see Uma, now dressed as well and with her hair pulled back, making her way over to them through the snow. She had caught up in the next second, and she slipped her hand into Harry's.

They followed Harriet down the hallway into the "study", and there they found President Coriolanus Snow sitting at the desk, his posture perfectly upright, his expression cloyingly polite as he pretended not to notice that they had entered.

CJ was there, too, in a flannel shirt that was much too big for her, with her arms crossed, her honey-colored hair unkempt, and her lips in a slight pout as she stared down the president. _She_ looked over as soon as they entered and flatly announced, "They're here."

"Splendid," Snow said, finally turning his head to where both Harriet and Harry were gesturing for CJ to leave the room (not that she complied) and Uma was standing mutely behind them. "I was just asking young Calista Jane why she isn't in school."

"And _I_ was just asking _Snow_ why he isn't at work," CJ tacked on, which was enough to turn Harriet's attempted subtlety in silently urging her to leave into a choice to physically remove her from the study. CJ allowed herself to be dragged away, and soon Harry and Uma found themselves alone with the president, the door shut behind them.

"She's a delight," Snow said with a smile.

Uma squeezed Harry's hand, and he became aware that he was glaring at Snow outright. He moved his gaze to some far wall while she said, "We weren't expecting a visit, sir. What an honor."

"Do sit," Snow said.

CJ was the reason they sat, the reason Uma spoke calmly, the reason Harry tried not to think about all the pens on the desk. He wondered if Uma still had the knife with her. Probably best not to think about that, either.

"You two have started up quite the little buzz, around the Capitol," Snow chuckled.

"Is that so, sir?" Uma said coyly. She had her legs crossed regally and her head tilted pensively. She had just woken up, as any casual observer could tell from the state of her hair and clothes, and yet she was ready to take on the world.

"It is. Or, I should say, the two of you and Gilbert Legume."

"Is that why you've decided to... _honor_ us with your presence, dear president?" Harry asked airily, and he was unable to quite remove the venom from his tone.

Snow was clearly basking in Harry's displeasure, and in his helplessness. "More or less," he said.

"We're not breaking any laws, are we?" Uma asked.

"Do let's dispense with the notion that a breach of law is the only way to measure defiance, Miss Triskelion. The districts are kept separate for a reason; undermining this, and making my constituency applaud you as you undermine it, is an unambiguous act of rebellion."

The r word.

They had agreed that they wouldn't rebel until CJ was too old to be reaped, but it had snuck up on them anyway. And over this? Snow had to be reaching, making an excuse, to throw a fuss over something that mattered this little. He was using their tiny non-infraction to advance something he'd already been planning; it was the only explanation.

Uma removed her hand from Harry's in order to let her hair down, then retie it more neatly, which meant that she was at her most focused right now. "I thought victors, as public figures, were allowed to act outside the bounds of district lines."

"Victors, as public figures, are allowed to act _only_ in ways that further entertain the Capitol audience," Snow riposted.

"And that isn't what we did?"

"You went past entertainment; you moved them to ask questions. You moved them to request laws bent around you. And I have trouble believing that it wasn't deliberate, Miss Triskelion."

Uma's face slackened. Harry could tell that she was doing some very fast thinking.

"The way I see it," Snow said, "the only way to diffuse what _you_ three have chosen to set aflame is by changing the story, moving the tension away from your tryst with Gilbert, placing it instead somewhere...closer to home."

Elsewhere in the house, CJ was stomping up the stairs, and Harriet was calling after her, "And comb your hair, while yer at it!" The door to CJ's bedroom slammed shut in answer.

"I invite you to change my mind," Snow said gloatingly.

Harry was thinking about the pens. He found it hard to think of anything else.

Uma placed both of her hands flat on the desk. Her nails were chewed short, unglamorous, where Snow's were buffed and glossy. "Are we being honest, sir?" she asked.

"I certainly hope so," Snow chuckled.

"You don't want to use CJ," Uma said, cautious but confident. "Use her, and you lose your best weapon against us."

Snow's eyebrows rose. "You think so?"

"Unless you choose to physically torture or execute us," Uma conceded politely. "But you don't _really_ want to do that either. Am I correct?"

Snow smiled in a cryptic way that made Harry really want to hide Uma behind him (or run with her, better yet, and take Harriet and CJ with them as he went) and prompted, "What are you getting at, dear Uma? Surely you don't think I can allow future victors to believe that these _bold_ acts can be tolerated."

Harry inhaled hard, hearing the snake say Uma's name, hearing him call her "dear", hearing his sweetly chastening tone.

Uma leaned forward, fingertips pressing firmly into the desk either to anchor her or to inflict upon the wooden surface the pain that she couldn't inflict on Snow himself. "You don't want to bend laws? Don't want to show any weakness? I was the one who reached out to Gil first; address whatever punishment you _apparently_ need to get out of your system to _me-"_

"Uma!" Harry protested, turning in his seat to face her.

"-and then pretend to force us to keep it up," Uma finished, sparing Harry only a brief soft glance. "If you make us stop, then your people will be mad at you; pull out some made-up law that says we _have_ to stay together, all three of us, and you get to keep them happy while recontextualizing our relationship as something mandated. Punish me for starting it, then make us see it through."

"That sounds convenient...for you," Snow noted lightly.

"Not for me," Harry growled, still trying to catch Uma's eye. He knew there was probably something clever behind her words, knew that Uma wasn't dumb enough to make this sort of proposal without a plan, but he couldn't for the life of him get past her first suggestion. "I kissed him, same as you did."

"So you did," Snow agreed. "You two have given me a lot to think about."

President Snow rose to his feet and strode toward the exit.

Harry didn't feel moved to stand, and by all appearances neither did Uma; they remained in their seats, their bodies inclining gradually closer to one another as Snow's departure promised privacy. But then the president halted just before his hand could touch the door handle, and he calmly said:

"Oh! You should probably expect a train to come and collect you in the near future. Probably not in this irksome weather, but then...the snow's got to melt sometime." And with a final grin at their matching furious expressions, he left.

Uma buried her face in her hands as soon as he was gone.

 

Gil only ever watched the mandatory broadcasts; never any of the everyday Capitol news. So, when the notice came that the broadcast that Saturday night would be a mandated watch, he had no idea what it could possibly pertain to.

"Is it an execution?" he asked the nearest Peacekeeper as the adults of the district, having been gathered to receive the announcement, dispersed. "What's been going on?"

The Peacekeeper shrugged gruffly.

It was a random passerby whose name and face Gil did not know who gave the answer, "Snow was in 4 yesterday," before hastily vanishing back into the crowd on its way back toward the factories.

It was a simple statement, but it was enough to send Gil into a panic.

District 4. It couldn't be a coincidence. Well, it could, but who was he kidding? Snow didn't just _go_ to the districts. And when he went anywhere, they weren't told about it, unless there was some message being sent.

He regretted his cowardice, hiding behind Harry and Uma. Regretted it so much. It was his fault, allowing himself to be Not Okay with them; he knew better. He had been taught better. Would Snow execute them, for his stupidity? And force him to watch through his screen? No, no, victors almost never got executed. Right? And the Capitol loved them. Right. It couldn't be an execution. It couldn't be an execution. Something else. He was being stupid, panicking. Like when he had cried when he was supposed to kill the pigs and had gotten kicked out of the factory with no pay, and his father had called him useless and his brothers had mocked him mercilessly even after he found work collecting eggs for the chicken lady. It was like that; he was becoming emotional over what was probably nothing.

The crowd was dissolving around him, petering out as people reached their destinations, their work days, and he just stood there. None of the passersby questioned it; while to the rest of Panem he was a victor, to District 10 he always remained, on some level, Gaston's boy who cried a lot and cheerfully conversed with the chickens. The child with too many feelings who somehow doddered his way through the Hunger Games and came out alive.

"Gil," a voice prompted.

He turned around and saw his fellow mentor: Fa Mulan, who had won her games twenty-something years ago by more or less dropping a mountain on the competition, earning herself a reputation for ruthlessness that was intriguing when married with the graceful way that she always carried herself. She had a serious face, not quite stern but not indulgent either, framed by chin-length black hair that wasn't tied back today, which was how Gil knew to refer to her in female terms.

"What's it about? What's the mandatory broadcast about?" Gil rambled helplessly.

"We don't know. We'll know tomorrow. Keep it together, Gil; they're watching." Mulan was in her riding clothes; she had been on her horse, probably, before they were called here. All of the children in the district loved Mulan's horse; Gil remembered being young and gathering at her fence with the other children when the workday was over, watching her ride and calling out her name in the hopes of having her smile at him directly. And one day, his brothers had dared him to sneak into her stables and steal the horse's saddle; he had successfully picked the lock but cried as soon as he was in, and she'd found him there, sitting in the hay and crying while her horse stared at him indifferently. She had told him that true courage was having the strength to be one's truest self. And then, after he'd won the games, she had been the one to teach him that they were always being watched, that every move they made mattered for the rest of their lives.

"They're watching?" Gil repeated hollowly.

"The newer Peacekeepers are watching you," Mulan said. "Come back to the Village; worry where it's safe."

He did.

They sat at Mulan's table and drank tea wordlessly. There was incense lit somewhere; Mulan said it improved her focus, and Gil found it comforting.

After watching a cricket roam the tabletop for two minutes, Gil broke the silence:

"Snow was in 4. Does that mean it's about Harry and Uma?"

Mulan didn't say no immediately, and Gil's heart thudded the longer her pause drew out before she answered, "You guys took a big risk, surprising Snow like that. I could see that he didn't like it. But the audience did, and it matters what they think. It always matters." Mulan drank deeply from her tea. She had all the right habits- herbal tea where others turned to booze, physical exercise where others deteriorated -but they were her drugs, still. She brewed the same steaming pot of tea and lit the same incense in the summer that she did in the winter, and she sweated through it and burned her tongue; she took the same brisk runs and horse rides in the winter that she did in the summer, until hypothermia forced her to temporarily stop. "I do think Snow will want to do something about it, but I doubt it will be as direct as an execution."

"What does that mean?" Gil asked. "Why'd he go to them and not to me? I'm the problem; they were fine before I came along."

"That's not how Snow likely sees it. Harry and Uma have been cleverly defying him for years; you kept your head down until you met them."

Again, Gil thought about the moment when Harry ran to kiss Uma after his Games, the moment when the two of them became each other's protection, to thunderous applause. It had to have bothered Snow, that master play that he could do nothing, reasonably, to stop. And just a few months ago, they had done it again, for Gil.

"But the fact that he went to 4 means that he probably spoke to them directly," Mulan added, and she sounded somber even though the words gave Gil a tiny bit of hope.

"Well, that means maybe they could bargain with him, right?" he hedged.

"Snow is a snake," she answered simply. "The reason he _has_ power is because he is able to twist circumstances to benefit him at others' expense."

Reflexively, Gil became uncomfortable at Mulan's bluntness. She spoke coolly, purposefully, completely in control of herself, but nobody went around calling the president a snake. "They're smart," he insisted. "They'll know how-"

"And Snow doesn't like it when people are good at playing the game with him," Mulan said patiently, tiredly. "He hates being challenged, and he despises being beaten."

"He can be beaten?" Gil said.

"Anyone can be beaten. But if you beat Snow, he'll make sure that you pay for it more than he does." Mulan shut her eyes, drained the last of her tea, and opened her eyes again, just a crack, so that she could refill the cup.

Her whole family had disappeared one day. The story around the district was that they had been killed; Gil had believed that, believed that she had defied Snow and he had arranged for her family to be killed off. It was only after becoming a victor that she had entrusted him with the truth: She had arranged for them to escape. At seventeen, the year after winning her Games, as soon as she had learned the strings that Snow was able to pull, she had cut the strings entirely. Made it so that her family escaped to the wilderness while she was away in the Capitol, blameless. Freed herself of his blackmail by freeing the ones she loved: her father, her mother, her grandmother. She never saw them again, but they were safe from Snow. At seventeen, she had made that calculation, had beaten him.

And that was why Snow had ensured that every child she had was reaped. She had borne three, with a year dividing the eldest two and two years dividing the youngest. And each one, at twelve years old, had become a tribute and had died in the Games.

And the herb man had sold out of tea each time.

Gil and Mulan drank in silence again.

This time, it was Mulan, glaring at her reflection in the tea as if it withheld the secrets of the universe, who broke it: "Do you love them? Do they love you?"

"I..." He faltered for only a moment before, "Yes. We love each other. Why?"

"Then that's all that matters. That's what makes any of this matter: love. Everyone I've ever loved is gone now, and I don't regret not loving them more carefully; I regret not loving them more recklessly." She looked up from her tea, met his eyes with her fierce, dark ones. "Snow is going to use your love to hurt all three of you. He'll use it to serve him like he uses everything. But the only way to survive it is to love _anyway."_

Shortly, Gil started crying, because he _always_ eventually started crying, and because it would hurt so much if Uma and Harry were killed, even one of them, and despite Mulan having said that she doubted Snow would be so banal as to execute them, he was afraid that anyone had the power to so swiftly break him. He understood rebellion, now, so much better, understood those rare fools who rose and fell and _tried_ even though they knew they would only have their tongues cut out in the long run.

Mulan left to go riding, but she didn't ask him to leave.

Gil sat at the table, staring at the cricket and listening to Mulan's periodic wall-muffled yells ("Yyaaa!") as she rode. When the light from the window started to dim and his lower half felt numb, he finally stood and walked out into the dusky outdoors. He lived at the end of the street, even though there were some houses available closer the Village's entrance; those houses had belonged to people who were dead now, and he didn't want to sleep in a dead person's bed. That was also why he didn't take Mulan up on her offer to stay in one of her extra rooms instead of always returning home to his brothers and father. He would take his family's crap over strangers' ghosts.

That didn't mean he wouldn't still avoid his family where possible, though, which was why he made a point of walking up and down the street until it was properly dark and he expected that everyone in the house would be asleep. The lights in the windows were still on, but sometimes if they conked out after work, they were too tired to turn them off.

In the yard, Gil detoured for a few minutes to greet all of his pets; he had bought several pigs and two cows, to save them from the chopping block. (The Capitol had tentatively agreed that pet care counted as a hobby, and then had been _fully_ won over by footage of him cuddling the piglets.)

Finally, he entered the house, and he was prepared for the smell of unwashed laundry (since Gil hadn't been home all day and Gaston didn't have a wife at the moment) and for the sight of piled up garbage bags (mostly full of eggshells and chicken bones) by the door, but not for the ensemble of uniformed men who stood in the entryway or his father and brothers, all wide awake and still dressed in their work clothes, sitting around the living room.

"There you are," Gaston Jr groaned. "We've been waiting for hours. Well, _these_ guys have."

"Gilbert Legume?" one of the strange men said, pointing at him inquisitively as if it wasn't close to mandatory that everyone in Panem knew his name.

"G-Gil, yeah," he answered, trying to embolden his voice as he saw his father in the corner of the room rolling his eyes. "What is it?"

"We have orders from President Snow to extricate you."

"What does extricate mean?" Gil asked, trying not to sound flustered.

"There's a train waiting for you; come on. Your tardiness has already thrown us off schedule."

In his mind, Gil felt like pointing out that one couldn't really be tardy for something that hadn't been mutually arranged, but he was too startled and anxious to even get a word out.

It was Gaston Jr who spoke up for him, in a serious tone: "Is he in trouble?"

"That isn't ours to say," a different uniformed man replied, and all of the men were moving toward the door, ushering Gil along in their current. "We are only here to extricate him."

"I still don't know what extricate means," Gil choked out, now in a high panic as gloved hands started to land on him and maneuver him out the door.

"Just come with us."

The door closed.

The faces of his brothers filled the lit windows as he was led, stumbling but not resisting, down the street. They didn't look sad or worried about him; just solemn. And seeing their solemn, detached expressions made him feel like he was being reaped all over again, alone and in danger and why was no one storming out to help him? Why did they just stand there, watching?

"Yyaaa!" Mulan's horse cantered up to the fence, and she loomed over them from it. "What's going on?"

"They're extricating me. I don't know what extricate means," Gil said desperately.

"Right now it just means 'take from one place and move to another'," Mulan told him briskly, then returned her attention to his abductors. "Where are you taking him? What's going on?"

Other victors (old or addled, all of them) watched through windows or cracked doors. Gil's face was red, his eyes burning. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. There might be cameras when you get to the train; don't let them see you cry._

"We don't know anything other than the fact that he's going on the train," said one of the men gripping Gil's upper arm.

"And not me? I'm his fellow mentor."

"We have no orders pertaining to you."

They had reached the end of Mulan's yard; she couldn't follow on horseback anymore, so she dismounted Khan and hopped the fence to keep pace with them. Gil was deeply touched by her persistence.

"Ma'am, please don't force us to subdue you."

Mulan made a face as if she invited them to try but said, "I'm just accompanying him to the train. Then I'll leave."

Gil struggled to be okay with the last part, the leaving-him-alone-on-the-train part.

"Gil," Mulan prompted as they left Victors' Village behind them, and when he looked at her with what must have been a pitiful expression, she earnestly said, "remember what I told you."

He sniffed and sluggishly replied, "About love?"

"No. Remember what I told you before your Games."

It only took him a second before: "Look at my reflection when I can; it helps me see if someone is sneaking up behind me, and it helps me remember who I am."

Mulan nodded. "And also the thing about love, I suppose." She flashed him a smile. "You're a brave kid, Gil."

There _were_ cameras waiting for him by the train. He straightened his spine and tried to be what Mulan had said she saw in him as the camerapeople swarmed. He didn't relax his shoulders until the doors of the train closed behind him.

He was alone.

Even the security detail who had ferried him from his house were now in a different part of the train. He had never ridden by himself.

He considered drinking, but the idea didn't appeal to him much; the relief would be minimal, since he had no one to drink with, and anyway, he wanted a clear head. Maybe Snow would be talking to _him_ , too; a terrifying idea, but not quite as terrifying as the idea of having to talk to Snow while drunk or hungover.

He paced the train car several times before retiring to a bed and worrying himself to sleep.

 

"Mr. Legume?"

Blearily, Gil opened his eyes.

Before him stood a squat, middle-aged Capitol woman (although he had learned that people from the Capitol did _not_ like to be called "squat", nor "middle-aged", which he didn't completely understand) with a baby blue aesthetic that covered the obvious accessories, like her shoes, dress, and jewelry, and the less obvious, like her hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, and contact lenses. The only things left out of the baby blue bandwagon were her actual skin (pale) and her lips (rosy pink and slathered in gloss).

Gil had thought that he was used to Capitol fashion, but this was a rather surprising something to wake up to.

"You've reached your destination," the woman said. Her blue fingernails tapped against a clipboard, and despite the fact that she was standing still, she sort of buzzed with a nervous energy, like she was late for something. "You've got to get dressed and get prepped; the cameras will be around in less than two hours."

"Two hours?" Gil repeated while the tiny woman manhandled him out of bed and towards the bathroom.

"Hurry!"

In the ensuing two hours, a prep team descended on him, plucking at extraneous hairs and combing and brushing the approved ones, moisturizing him, cleaning and buffing his fingernails and his toenails. It would have been nice to think _They wouldn't waste all this effort prettying up someone they were going to execute_ , but knowing the Capitol, they absolutely would.

When he was finally allowed to be free of his prep team, he was dressed in brown leather pants, a brown leather short-sleeved shirt, and a brown leather vest. Being fair, it was...comparably tasteful, for the Capitol. The designs were understated, as least. But then, seeing the lady in blue (now beckoning urgently for him near the train doors) had given him context for how silly he could have looked, and he was feeling forgiving of the fashion because they had buttered him up by making him smell nice. He _loved_ smelling nice.

"Come on, come on," the blue lady whispered.

When Gil met her at the exit, she immediately pressed the button to open the doors and led him out into the sunlight.

It was very bright out. That plus the camera flashes made him reflexively cover his face.

"Gil!"

...until he heard that voice.

He dropped his hands, scanned his surroundings for the voice's owner until he located both Uma and Harry swiftly descending the stairs of their own train, hand-in-hand, running toward him.

He broke into a smile and a sprint.

He collided with Uma, first- she was the fastest runner -and the impact might have knocked her off her feet were it not for the combined contributions of Gil immediately wrapping his arms around her and Harry coming up behind her and embracing them both.

For the moment, Gil didn't think about Snow or the cameras: only wholeness. Only skin and fabric and sweet smells and warmth and they were really here, really here with him.

It was Uma, concealed between him and Harry, who eventually whispered, _"Are you okay?"_

_"Yeah, I'm okay."_

_"Don't answer this out loud, but did Snow talk to you?"_

Gil shook his head no.

 _"We don't know what's going on,"_ Uma told him. _"Snow threatened to have Harry's sister reaped, then he said he'd be sending a train for us. And now you're here, too."_

_"He threa-?!"_

Harry prevented Gil from finishing his incredulous question by quickly breaking the hug and saying, "Think you've got enough leather on yeh, Gilly? You've got more cow skin on you than human skin!"

Gil managed a weak chuckle. He knew how the banter was supposed to go; he was supposed to say, _At least I'm wearing clothes!_ , or something of the sort, in reference to what they'd put Harry in: a black fishnet in the shape of a shirt covering his upper body (rendering him functionally topless) and a pair of black trousers with extremely skinny legs and plentiful holes. That was what he was supposed to say. Harry had started them on the clothing banter as implied permission to make that quip. But he couldn't find it funny, because he _knew_ how Harry hated showing the Capitol this much of his body. He couldn't turn it into a joke.

So instead, he dove into Harry's chest and said, "I missed you so much," and let Harry wrap him in his arms again.

One of Uma's hands made circles on his back, and the other stroked his hair, and he knew that he was the one who should have been comforting them, after the ordeal that they had apparently been through, but thinking about that just made him want to weep for them, so he tried not to think.

"We missed you, too," Uma said softly. "Hasn't been the same without you."

"Tha's true," Harry drawled mischievously. "Y'know, I never realized, but Uma's actually a pretty crap dancer."

"Excuse you!" Uma said, mock-affronted, and Gil really did chuckle this time. Uma was no such thing, and Harry knew it.

"Sorry you had to find out this way, love," Harry sighed coyly.

"You will die by my hand, Hook," Uma said, then stroked Gil's hair a last time and took her hand away.

Gil, too, was ready to withdraw; he took a step back from Harry so that all three of them stood in a tiny triangle, everyone facing everyone else.

The air was chilly on Gil's skin, but his face was hot, and somehow the world felt lighter than it had before. He still wasn't completely sure that Snow wasn't about to kill all of them (or, perhaps worse, _some_ of them), but they were together. Uma and Harry were right here, where he could at least try to protect them and they could try to protect him: a precarious situation, but better than the helplessness of being separated.

Gil's eyes lingered on Uma's dress: short-cut, sleeveless, clearly designed to compliment her specific figure, and visually reminiscent of fish scales. Her hair was braided again, but now the braids went in a spiral pattern like a conch shell, and tiny puka shell adornments dangled from it.

Harry's eyeliner was especially sharp, as well.

They weren't just presentable; they were beautiful, and he supposed that _he_ must have been, too, or at least he was probably supposed to be.

A part of him began to worry that something very different from an execution was taking place.

"Hi, excuse me..." And then the blue lady was inserting herself between them, jittery and restless as ever. "Hello," she said, waving her hand in a slow but over-the-top way. "My name is Fairy; I'll be your coordinator for the...foreseeable future."

"Coordinator?" Harry repeated.

With a helpless shrug, Fairy said, "I don't know much more about it than you do, doll. We're all just waiting for the president's broadcast."

"Don't call him doll." Uma extended a hand to shake. "Uma. Enchanted to meet you."

Fairy shook her hand with a very formal smile, then said, "I'm sure we'll get better acquainted as time progresses, but for now I'm supposed to get you three settled into your new house."

All three of them made the same sharp head turn. "Our _what?"_

 

The house was beautiful, and it terrified him. Somehow, nothing was more frightening than a lavish gift from one's greatest threat. Snow was not generous; he was only cruel with a candy coating.

But the house...

Even just from the outside, it was picturesque and colorful, technically bigger than the houses in Victors' Village, but cozier-looking, too, like it wasn't so much empty space and loneliness (as in Mulan's house), nor cramped, uncomfortable crowding akin to tenement housing (as in Gil's). It was charming and isolated and surrounded by greenness.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" Fairy gushed breathlessly.

The cameras were all the way outside the fence, filming their backs (but mostly the house itself).

Harry looked flatly stunned, whereas Uma had a slight frown, her eyes scanning the building before her as if calculating how many homeless families could have fit inside.

"The press already have footage of the interior," Fairy continued, "so you can explore it unobserved." She flashed a smile as if this was the greatest treat, which Gil supposed it might have been. But every instance of decency just made this whole thing scarier. "Go on in when you're ready! Enjoy. We won't know what the plans are for tomorrow until after the broadcast, which is in four hours, but I do know that we have the whole day blocked out, so don't stay up too late."

For a second they just stood there, gaping. Harry squeezed Uma's shoulder, then reached over Uma to squeeze Gil's, as well. This was enough to break Uma from her daze: she led the way into the building.

The front door opened to a wide-open space: a carpeted foyer with teal walls (Uma's color), a fireplace, and a soft-looking sitting area.

"Our thanks to President Snow," Uma intoned, signaling that they were _not_ speaking freely in here.

They explored every room, keeping close together all the while.

There was a music room- with a grand piano, a guitar, several books of empty sheet music, and a box of recording equipment -for Harry, who wrinkled his nose at the extravagance but still grudgingly ran awestruck fingers over the piano's shiny keys.

"That's for the acoustics," he explained, unprompted, to Gil and Uma while pointing at the weird fixtures on the wall. "Improves the sound quality."

Uma nodded as if this was deeply meaningful, and Gil felt that he was missing something.

They moved on to the laundry room, where an unpleasant surprise was waiting for them.

"He's giving us an Avox?" Gil blurted out, horrified.

The Avox in question, a sad-looking young blond woman, held up two fingers.

"Two Avoxes," Uma almost growled. "How _generous."_

"We know how to wash our own underthings," Harry assured the woman, who hastily began to shake her head in the negative and pat the laundry machine as if it were her lifeline.

"Alright," Uma conceded, with a gesture that Gil could tell was a sincere apology. "Alright. We'll see you around." As they turned to leave the room, she lightly tugged on her own ear, and Harry nodded.

Gil wished he understood how they spoke outside their words.

Next was the kitchen, where the second Avox waited, brown-skinned and apron-clad.

"Snow _knows_ my 'hobby' is cooking," Uma said heatedly, and the Avox shrugged as if she couldn't agree more (which was surprisingly expressive, for an Avox; this one must not have been completely broken down yet).

"He must think you need some help," Harry supplied, halfhearted in his pretend response.

Again, Uma made the apology gesture at the Avox. Then she wandered the kitchen, turning the faucet on and off and testing the stove. Harry watched her closely, so Gil did as well, even though he still didn't get it.

"Good water pressure," was all she said.

They returned to the hallway, which was not entirely the same as they'd left it; now, a small gray cat with a brown collar was standing in the middle of it, staring up at them.

"There's _your_ hobby, Gil," Harry noted. "Our brilliant leader has thought of everything."

Gil crouched down and allowed the cat to pad up to him and lick his outstretched hand with a tiny, rough tongue. Two front paws were placed on his wrist, as if the creature didn't want him to get back up. This thing...

"Gil?" Uma prompted, sounding slightly concerned.

Gil looked up at her. "It's so cute," he marveled.

Uma sighed exasperatedly, but she was smiling _just_ a little bit. "Gil," she scolded. Right, they were keeping their guard up.

Harry gave him a hand to help him stand.

Gil stood...with the cat. He had already decided to name him Gray. It was even one of his brothers' names.

Uma exchanged a look with Harry and pointed at Gray's collar.

"What?" Gil asked.

Both Harry and Uma pressed a finger to their lips, and Uma pointed at the collar again.

Gil shrugged helplessly, and Harry digressed:

"Let's check out the other rooms, yeah?"

There was a study, not substantially different from the ones in Victors' Village: desk, shelves, paper and pens. Uma took a pen and pad with her on the way out, though none of them commented on it.

There was one bedroom, with one giant bed, which caused Gil to blush and Uma to roll her eyes as if unimpressed.

Harry tried to make a joke of it, holding his hands up in a frame shape as if evaluating the bed's potential. Uma smacked his arm, but he at least got a momentary smirk out of her as they moved on to the last room: a sitting room, with a table and some armchairs and a second fireplace and a window seat and a television.

Gray mewed to be set down, and Gil let him curl up on the window seat, in the sun.

"Gil, you're already enamored of that cat," Uma said.

"Gray," Gil corrected, stroking him between the ears. "And yes."

Harry sprawled into one of the armchairs. Uma sat in his lap and started writing on the paper from the study. Gil went to sit on the arm of the same chair when Harry beckoned him over.

Over Uma's shoulder, Gil read:

_Wide entryway + carpeted floor -- > they could sneak in that way if they ever want to ambush. Dark walls --> hard to see shadows. Good acoustics in music room; never have private discussions there. Probably listening devices in: the kitchen sink, the bedroom (somewhere), & the cat's collar. Cat might be a muttation; hard to tell. Don't say anything secret in front of the Avoxes; unsafe for them._

She tapped the pen to her lips a few times, as if thinking, then passed the pen and pad on to Harry, who added:

_Two fireplaces and an open flame stove; easy to burn down house if they chose to. Also, they could enter through window._

Uma nodded sagely and gestured for Harry to hand the pen and pad on to Gil.

Gil accepted them as they were passed into his hands, but he didn't know what to write. It seemed the other two had been thinking this through quite a bit. Eventually, he jotted:

_Is there anywhere we can talk?_

Uma took the pen and leaned across him to write: _Not sure. We'll just write for now. Probably burn the paper, too._ Then she met his eyes, and he became aware of how closely they were all sitting. It was...

It was like he was falling into her eyes- brown as the earth and liquid as a healing broth -and being wrapped up in the fishing net masquerading as Harry's shirt, snug and immovable. He had been so afraid for them...

They were kissing now, him and Uma. From the way that she laughed into it, he guessed that he must have been the one to instigate the kiss. Harry sat up and nuzzled in close to both of them; he never could be left out of the affection.

When Uma pulled back, Gil almost leaned to follow her, but Harry's face blocked his, breaking Gil's trance, and Uma sat back as if exhausted. Had she slept? Surely Harry would have made sure...But then, had Harry slept?

"I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, guys," Uma said quietly.

"Snow's gotta melt sometime," Gil offered.

Instead of chorusing back the expected response, both Harry and Uma met his eyes in such a haunted way that Gil shivered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment! Even if it's just, like, a list of the things you liked about this chapter, I'd be super happy! Also, get some sleep; take care of yourselves.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (TW: some descriptions of what happened in the Games- might be kind of intense; blood; brief mentions of past self-harm (not cutting); and more angst) 
> 
> This chapter is kind of an introspective one.

They spent most of the day in the sitting room with the television on (and their armchairs moved close together), waiting for Snow's broadcast. They left the room sparingly, but still Uma had somehow learned both of the Avox's names before the apron-clad one brought up their lunch.

"Thanks, Ti," she said to the woman while Harry, stone-faced as he always became around the Avoxes, helped with the tray of plates. 

Uma had changed out of her fancy fish scale dress and into something more apt for sitting around the house: a pair of sweatpants (or the Capitol's shamelessly-luxurious approximation of sweatpants) and a plain shirt that she'd robbed from Gil's wardrobe because all of the shirts provided for _her_ had either plunging necklines or high hems and were made from materials that put prettiness well before comfort, and all of _Harry's_ , infuriatingly, were see-through. The pins and shells had been removed from her hair and littered the table, and around her, she had piled up several stacks of books from the study. She had been scanning the back of one with clear interest, but she now set it aside. "That smells amazing."

The woman ("Ti", apparently) gave a weary smile, as if to say 'No problem'.

"That it does," Harry agreed. He, too, had changed into one of Gil's shirts, as well as mussed his hair and removed his shoes and socks. "If they do turn out to be axing us, I'm honored that you'll have been the chef of my last meal."

Ti rolled her eyes at him indulgently. Definitely more personality than Gil had ever seen in an Avox; it was tragically admirable, how much of herself she seemed to have retained.

Gil himself was, for once, actually watching the TV, in one of the armchairs. Gray the cat had climbed up onto his lap about an hour ago and fallen asleep; absently, Gil stroked his cat's fur. He had, of course, taken Uma's warning about the danger of Gray potentially being a mutt seriously, but he couldn't shake the belief that he'd held his whole life that any animal could be a friend to you if you treated it well enough. A dangerous animal was one you didn't have time to win over, and one thing Snow seemed to have given him was time. Some of it, at least.

Still, he wished he didn't have a cat in his lap now that there was food. "Can one of you pass me some of everything?" he asked, quietly.

"Gil," Uma sighed. "Are you really whispering so you don't wake the cat?"

"He's sleeping," Gil said.

Ti approached and calmly lifted Gray into her arms and set him on the floor. The cat stirred but did not wake.

This was all the encouragement Gil needed to pile his plate high with food and dig in. Both Harry and Uma paused to gaze incredulously at the quantity, but they couldn't make any comment about it because they were too busy eating, themselves.

It was so good. It was _so **good**_. So good that Gil could have cried. So good that he wondered how he hadn't noticed before now how soulless Capitol food really was. ( _Because I was starving and had little frame of reference,_ he answered himself mentally.) _This_ was food made by someone with a passion for cooking, not just a need to cook.

Harry moaned openly.

"I would die for this soup," Uma said, completely serious.

"I would kill for this soup," Harry said.

"Songs should be sung about this soup."

"I will write them."

Ti, who was distributing napkins to them, only smiled in a vaguely pained way. Or at least, Gil was pretty sure she did, but he only got a glance before he actually did tear up over how good the soup was; by the time he wiped the moisture from his eyes, Ti's back was to him.

_"...And now, to finally cover what everyone's been buzzing about, we go live to Caesar Flickerman. Caesar, is the wait for President Snow's broadcast as excruciating for you as it is for us?"_

"Hey, Caesar's on!" Gil announced, and Uma and Harry turned to the screen while Ti made her exit from the room and closed the door behind herself.

Caesar's hair was neon green today, and his suit a glimmering _dark_ green. _"Afternoon, folks!"_ he said heartily, ignoring the news person's lead-in, which was out of character for him; normally he at least pretended that other Capitol media personalities were worth acknowledging. _"Let's just get right down to it, shall we?"_

Behind him, the giant studio screen played footage of Gil, Uma, and Harry arriving at the Capitol earlier that day and getting off of their trains. Gil saw the digital Harry and Uma descend with their hands linked, and he saw himself wince and cover his face to block the light, and he saw them call his name in surprise, and he saw himself run to them and them to him. An unseen studio audience reacted with cheers and affectionate swoons, and Caesar's smile grew as he talked over them:

_"Earlier today, Uma Triskelion, Harry Hook, and Gil Legume arrived at the Capitol. Their purpose here has been undisclosed, but there is speculation that it is somehow related to the president's raptly-awaited upcoming speech."_

(In the background, the video was still running, and Gil was chagrined to note that any viewer could tell that they were whispering to each other as they hugged. Uma's face wasn't so visible, but his certainly was. Fortunately, Caesar's show was above speculative lip-reading; if he wanted to know what someone was saying, he brought them on for an interview.)

"So Caesar doesn't know either," Uma said calmly, sliding her now-empty bowl and plate out of the way so as to bring her book back to her lap. "Figured as much. Snow wouldn't let someone else take his thunder."

Caesar leaned conspiratorially closer to the audience and the cameras. _"But here's what we do know..."_

The footage behind him changed to a shot of them outside their new house, with their backs to the camera, followed by a reel of the house's interior.

_"President Snow, in his generosity, provided an immaculate house for the three victors, for the stated purpose of conducting a sanctioned exploration of victor relations. Whether that exploration..."_

But Caesar had to stop, because the audience was losing its collective mind.

"Well, Miss Fairy didn't tell us that part," Harry said.

"And Caesar's heavy on the Snow praise today," Uma observed. "Think they scripted him?"

"May have," Harry replied. "Can't say I care; he's always been a tool for-"

Uma shushed him as the studio audience's suggestive sounds yielded to more words from Caesar:

_"I know, a lot of questions, and I'm sure we're all curious as to how far it goes. Fortunately, we've got Mr. Hook, Ms. Triskelion, and Mr. Legume scheduled for an interview tomorrow night."_

"Huh." Uma frowned. "Caesar, tomorrow night."

"Fairy did say we had the day booked," Gil pointed out.

"Exactly," Uma answered. "With what? If Caesar Flickerman could only get a slot that late, then whatever we're doing for the rest of the day must be straight from Snow; Caesar's big enough to book us in the morning, otherwise."

"I didn't even know he _did_ morning interviews," Gil said.

"He would, if the alternative is letting the smaller outlets get to us first," Uma said. "Victors are his."

 _"The president's broadcast will be in another hour,"_ Caesar said. _"In the meantime, enjoy this montage of the best moments of Uma, Harry, and Gil."_

"Gil," Uma cautioned, and that was all the warning he got before Caesar vanished from the screen and was replaced with Games footage.

Harry exhaled. "Falling back on the classics, are they?"

"I'm sure these aren't random clips. These are the memories Snow wants to be fresh in everyone's mind when he makes his announcement." Uma shook her head disgustedly and turned a page in her book. Gil wasn't sure if she was truly indifferent or just couldn't look at the screen. _He_ couldn't look away.

Gil watched as a blood-spattered, thirteen-year-old Uma limped through sand up to her knees, pursued hotly by two tributes. He rarely had to remember Uma's Games, but he did now: her arena had been a desert, with one deep pond as the only water source; her final opponents had been a huge brother and sister duo from District 2.

He remembered.

The two groups (Uma alone, the siblings together) had stayed away from each other for an entire day, which was no good for the Capitol audience. An announcement had warned them the following morning that they should get a last drink from the pond while they could; an obvious trick, but they were parched. The three of them had converged on the pond just in time to see it filled with oil. Undrinkable.

And then the siblings had made their choice; the Games had to end sooner rather than later. So the chase began.

 _"You won't get to survive together anyway!"_ young Uma called, breathless, over her shoulder, and Gil was surprised by how much higher her voice had been. It was a jarring change, even roughened by disuse and dehydration as it was in the video. _"Not both of you!"_

 _"So one of us dies, the other lives!"_ the brother called back, resolutely.

 _"I've been there,"_ Uma said, stumbling more and more. She had led them in a giant circle such that they were doubling back on the pond now. She was running out of stamina and bleeding through a bandage on her leg. _"It's not good."_

 _"Allow us to put you out of your misery, then,"_ the sister said, and her hand was almost closing around the back of Uma's shirt (Even Gil, who _knew_ the outcome, felt short of breath.) when they arrived at the pond and Uma, without hesitation, dove in.

Gil pried his eyes away from the television to look at the real Uma, who was still looking down at her book. Her expression was hard, her shoulders tense. Harry also had his eyes on her, but he seemed to have deemed this not a time to bother her.

Two splashes, signifying the other tributes following Uma into the pond, made Gil look back at the screen again.

Three heads, oil-slicked, resurfaced: Uma already at the pond's other side (fast swimmer that she was), and the two other tributes treading towards her. Even with her being from District 4, it was obvious how this would go: Uma was too small, too injured, too alone.

Then, when the tributes were almost halfway to where she floated, Uma raised one of her hands.

In that hand was a match, ready to be stricken across one of the rocks above.

The siblings immediately stopped advancing. _"Wait! Wait! Hey, don't be insane!"_

The look on thirteen-year-old Uma's face reminded Gil why he had feared her for years. It wasn't an insane look, or a victorious look, or a sad look. It was absolutely nothing. Blank emptiness as she held up the thing that could kill them and herself. It could be attributed to blood loss, maybe, or to lethargy and shock, but even now Gil wasn't entirely sure. She held the match up matter-of-factly and eased it closer to the rock.

 _"I'm not giving you my life,"_ she said flatly, in her high, young voice. _"I'm not giving anyone my life."_

And while the siblings were still trying to retreat from the pond, she struck the match and threw it.

And the pond went up in flames with all three of them in it.

The screams were enough to wake the cat; Gray made a pitiful sound and curled around Gil's ankle.

Breaking his silence, Harry was murmuring, "They had it coming, love; they'd have killed you just as easily. You were brilliant."

Uma was gripping her book tightly. She sat up straight and said, "The idiots should've swam under the fire; oil floats. They could've just swam under the fire."

"Maybe they only teach that in District 4," Gil suggested softly.

"Such a crappy way to die," Uma said.

"You had to save your own life," Harry said. "You couldn't very well take them both hand-on-hand."

"I know," she said. "I don't regret surviving. People are always killing each other in screwed up ways; I'm no different."

The footage cut to Uma's victory interview, in which her burns were completely gone and her dress was designed to mimic fire on the surface of a pond; deep blue with a ruffle of red-orange netting above the bosom. This was her first media appearance with added hair, because a lot of her real hair had been burned. She looked extremely alert, but not shaken or upset.

 _"So tell me,"_ Caesar said, _"what we're all dying to know: were you planning it?"_

 _"Was I planning on burning Endymion and Eurydice to death in that pond?"_ Uma rephrased straightforwardly, making a point of using their names. _"Yes."_

_"For how long?"_

_"Since they put the oil in."_

Hard cut to her Victory Tour; no audible words, just images and fanfare.

"Bet they won't show my speech for District 2," Uma said.

"They barely showed it the day you made it," Harry replied.

Gil remembered that, too; Uma had told the tributes' family not to dare forgive her. She had urged them to be furious, had told them, in a voice that he remembered had been partway between angry and desperate, that if she weren't there, one of their children would be. The footage had cut, for District 10 at least, right after that, and then never aired again.

Now, the fanfare faded into Harry's pre-Game interview; sixteen-year-old Harry, wiry and cocky.

 _"Look at him; not nervous at all,"_ Caesar hyped him up to the already-bewitched crowd. _"You must have done interviews before."_

 _"Alas, no, but I figure it doesn't matter what I say; no one understands my accent here anyway,"_ Harry answered, and his accent _did_ sound thicker in the old footage than it did now.

Caesar and the audience laughed. _"I'm so sorry,"_ Caesar chuckled, _"but how's this: if you win-"_

 _" **When** I win, Caesar,"_ Harry corrected. _"When."_

 _"'When'?"_ Caesar repeated, sounding delighted and amused. _"You seem so sure."_

_"'Course I'm sure. My sister ordered me to come home, and when Harriet Hook tells you to do something, it's rather in yer best interest to get it done. 'Sides, I got the world's greatest mentor."_

"Still true," the real Harry interjected as his onscreen self blew a kiss at Uma in the audience, who smirked and rolled her eyes (unlike current Uma, who just smirked).

Hard cut to Harry's Games, the jungle, after his first kill. The lazy, self-assured grin was gone, replaced by a mad rictus as he lost himself to a fit of inappropriate giggles over his enemy's corpse. Gil could see, from the tension in some of his muscles and the rivulets streaming from his eyes, that he was trying to stop laughing, but seemingly he couldn't. He slapped the ground with one hand, tightly gripped a hanging vine for support with the other, and shook with laughter as his face turned blue.

The real Harry watched his younger self unravel with an air of dispassion.

Then another hard cut to the end of his Games, and he stood silent, hunched over, soaked in blood, and surrounded by bodies. The implication seemed to be that he had killed more tributes than he actually had; they had omitted the part where he covered himself with the blood deliberately to discourage attackers. It was a weird thing to leave out, as that had been such an effective move on Harry's part. (Then again, Gil wasn't sorry to miss that imagery; it had nauseated him when he first watched it, when young Harry had cupped his hands to catch up the blood of the dead and poured it onto his face and body.)

Young Harry swept intense glares at his surroundings as if waiting for something to jump out at him. Then someone did, and he skewered them straight through the heart, loosing another fount of blood that gloved his whole arm and sprayed his face even more, and that was the end of that; nothing terribly out of the ordinary, so they soon cut to the footage of him running to kiss Uma afterwards (a jarring emotional shift), with a few overlaying clips of their interviews together after _that_ , with Harry's most popular music lilting through all of it, and they kept with that theme for a few minutes- the Capitol's favorite couple, adoring touches and brazen jokes and almost unearthly levels of possessiveness -, but too soon it was Gil's chariot ride, where he almost knocked his partner off the vehicle by accident, and...

"Do you want to bring the dishes downstairs, Gil?" Uma asked.

Gil seized the opportunity to not be in the room; he collected their used plates and bowls and flatware as quickly as he could and fled before he had to see that swamp again.

Avoidable pain was to be avoided.

In a state of slight dizziness, he brought the dishes into the kitchen, where Ti was cleaning up the pots and pans and whistling to herself. She straightened and went quiet when she heard Gil approaching.

"Uh, h-hey," Gil said, because he wanted to be like Uma and treat the Avoxes like regular people even though they seemed like tormented ghosts and that terrified him. He set his plate down awkwardly on the counter.

Ti took them into the sink, calmly, but she stared straight ahead at the wall as she submerged her hands in the soapy water, as if there was a daydream positioned _right there_ that she didn't yet want to break from.

"Um..." This seemed like the time to leave, but Gil couldn't help thinking about a time when he had been a child (somewhere between ages seven and twelve, as that was the period of time in which his mother would sporadically relapse into inexplicably loving his father and would, as a result, occasionally be present around the house, sometimes doing chores but mostly doing Gaston) and the sweltering heat of the bed he'd shared with three of his brothers had led him to wander out into their night-darkened yard (if he could even still call it a "yard", now that he'd been inhabiting Victor's Village and seen the true meaning of the word) while his mother was still hanging up wet laundry. She had kept her back turned to him, even when he said her name (because everyone else called her by her first name, or less than her name; if he'd tried calling her "mama" or "mother", he would have been ridiculed from all corners of the house for sure). She'd kept her back turned to him the way Ti was now. In Gil's experience, when a person kept their back to you, it was because they were feeling vulnerable and didn't want to be hurt more. "Are you...okay?"

Ti turned to face him with a sharp look in her eyes, as if that wasn't a question he was supposed to ask.

"Sorry! Sorry," he hastily said, causing her gaze to soften. He had been stupid, though; they were being listened to all the time, and he didn't know what would happen to the Avoxes if it was known that they were being emotional. In fact, his apology probably made it worse. "I mean...I'm going to go back to the room. Lunch was good."

He caught the Avox woman's forced-looking responding smile as he turned his back and hurried from the room.

He bumped into the blond Avox on his way down the hall, and she gasped and then bowed her head, not so much deferentially as warily.

"Sorry," he exhaled again as he ducked into the television room. Uma and Harry's gazes were locked earnestly on the television. He hesitated near the doorway. "Is it...?"

"It's still on your Games," Uma said, by way of warning, with an odd note in her voice that Gil couldn't quite identify.

"Still?" he said. "It only stayed in the arena for a few minutes for you guys."

"Yeah," Uma agreed, still riveted on the screen with her eyes steadily narrowing as if she was quite close to putting her fist through the television.

"We think we understand why they chose the clips they did," Harry said, beckoning Gil to his seat. "Tell you in a bit." There was a tightness to his tone, too; something about the Capitol's clips of Gil in the arena seemed to really bother them both.

Gray the cat had made himself at home in Gil's chair, so Gil sat on the floor between Uma's chair and Harry's, which earned him a different hand on each shoulder, a primally comforting feeling that enabled him to ignore the sounds of action onscreen.

"Was Ella still in the laundry room?" Uma asked.

"Is that the other one's name?"

Uma hummed in the affirmative. "Tiana and Ella."

"How did you ask?"

"Three of my sisters were deaf; I found out that the sign language I learned to use for them translates well for Avoxes when I first got reaped."

"I...didn't know you had sisters." Three?

Uma's hand moved up from his shoulder to play with his hair, and Gil rested his head on her knee. "All of them died young, before my Games. Not something the Capitol felt the need to make known. Kind of an unmarketable bummer."

It was weird to think that there was so much of Uma's past, and Harry's too, that weren't known of; it usually seemed like the Capitol aired their entire lives out for everyone to see. But then, Gil was used to not knowing things, so the feeling wasn't unfamiliar.

"So, was Ella still in the laundry room?"

"Oh. No. She was coming out of our room last I saw her; she had our old clothes in a basket." Uma's hand felt really good in his hair. It was a sort of intrinsically relaxing sensation akin to sinking into a warm bath after a long day. That combined with the weight of Harry's hand on his shoulder, and Gil was drowning, happily.

"Hmm." Uma's thumb paced back and forth in a steady arc. 

Then the anthem was playing, and Uma's hand stilled, and Harry's hand tightened, and Gil found himself wrapping his arms around one of Uma's calves and hiding his face behind her knee as if the image of President Snow on the TV screen would otherwise see him.

"Our fearless leader," Harry observed, in a tone as wispy-sweet as poison. His free hand started restlessly clicking at the pen that they had been using earlier.

 _"Thank you,"_ Snow was saying, with the smile of a man who held their life and death between his jaws and quite enjoyed the taste, _"and welcome to this very special broadcast."_

"Very special and very mandatory," Uma said, with a false smile as though she were speaking to the man himself.

_"As your president, I confess myself quite exhilarated over this singularly rare opportunity that has been placed before us. Many of you know that, a few months ago, some of our victors showed us the many ways that proven-strength can be rewarded."_

Gil didn't understand what it meant, but Uma let out a sound like a pot that had been left boiling for too long, and her fist tightened so that she was accidentally pulling his hair a little. "What?" he asked, but Uma was too focused on the TV to register the question.

 _"Their decision to share with us the perks of their victor status- i.e., their undying love for each other -has led me to a decision of my own. We all so enjoy any chance to truly know our victors, especially since it seems we only hear from them infrequently."_ (The clicking of Harry's pen ramped up in speed.) _"And so, henceforth and for the for the rest of their lives, Uma Triskelion, Harry Hook, and Gilbert Legume shall operate in my employ as facilitators to a new project which will enable our victors to continue to entertain us."_

Uma flew to her feet, dropping the books that had been on her lap and actually yanking painfully on Gil's hair in the nanosecond before she remembered to let go. Gil stood up, too, less in anger over Snow's statement (because his mind was too boggled for anger) than for the purpose of making sure neither Uma nor Harry tried to abuse the TV; Uma's quick movements had made that seem likely, and while Harry was still in his seat, he was leering at the screen with the energy of an animal about to charge or pounce. (Gil knew that energy; he had seen enough dumb kids sneak into the bulls' enclosure on a dare.) Neither of them did, though.

 _"The project will be known as Sisyphus's Reward, for the triumphant myth about a man so strong he could push a boulder up a mountain for eternity, and its scope will **not** be limited to only victors who have become mentors. Any and all of our favorite victors may return to us, through the Reward. I will hold a direct meeting with Uma, Harry, and Gilbert tomorrow at noon, to congratulate them and to clarify the responsibilities of their position. Their status as mentors to their districts has been terminated. And I have personally seen to it that their morning hours tomorrow be left free, so that they can enjoy each other's company properly on this day of reunion."_ Snow's mouth curved into a good-natured smile, as if to let the viewers know that he was in on the joke.

"He's saying he wants to let us bang," Gil observed, having caught onto the subtext there at least.

"Correct," Uma acknowledged, with malice in her tone that Gil knew wasn't for him.

_"Now, I'll let all of you return to your regularly-scheduled programming. I'm sure Caesar has more than a few thoughts."_

"Harry," Uma said stiffly.

Harry grabbed the remote, and the TV fizzled off before Caesar Flickerman's stunned expression could fully fade back in. Instead, Gil saw their reflections in the dark screen. Harry looked like he was waiting for Uma's permission to trash the place or kill somebody, and Uma looked as if somehow the TV remote had made her _thoughts_ fizzle out, too- she was still. Eerily still, and staring at nothing.

"So he's not killing us," Gil hazarded. "Any of us. At least not right now."

Uma's eyes blinked, then looked at him, still not quite in focus. Her eyes...it was like looking down into a steaming cup of dark brown tea, at Mulan's kitchen table. "No," she agreed flatly.

"And we don't have to be mentors anymore."

Uma shook her head hard, and then she was back in action, grabbing the pad of paper from the table and working the pen from Harry's grip before he could snap it in half. (As it stood, the pen was bent, but not beyond use.) "No," she agreed, more substance to her delivery, "but he's made a master move. So much smarter than killing us." She swept out of the room, leaving her books behind on the armchair and the floor.

Harry followed at her heels, and Gil behind him. As it turned out, they were heading to the bedroom. Uma seated herself cross-legged in the middle of the bed, scribbling furiously on the pad. Gil wondered if maybe _she_ would break the pen.

"Don't let that thing in here," Harry said suddenly, pointing down towards the floor. "Not where we sleep."

Gil looked down and saw that Gray had slunk in. He scooped the soft beast up and murmured, "Not right now, little guy," before setting him down in the hallway and shutting the door.

He went to the bed, then. The energy in the room was weird; there was the anger, naturally, but besides that, Harry and Uma seemed perfectly casual sitting on a bed together, whereas Gil couldn't have been more self-conscious as the mattress dipped under his weight and he joined them. Maybe it was because Snow's joking words about their free morning had put thoughts in his head that he was entirely sure weren't in theirs (at least not right now). In fact it probably _was_ for that exact reason. Which just solidified Snow's role as a person who routinely ruined things.

The notepad had been set down on the bed- available to anyone -and they formed a triangle around it.

Already on the page, and sloppy from haste, was what Uma had written: _"I feel f_ [illegible] _stupid. Of course he didn't kill us. Kill us, and we're the people who died for an inter-district relationship; that's the sort of martyrship rebellions are made of. So instead he stole our rebellion. He said our love for each other was our reward for being victors. He's making us work for him. Sell out other victors for him. He made us the Face of his operation. And he's adjusting our image already; he only aired the clips where we were playing his game. Either killing for him, or loving each other. Not the time I was allied with Hadie from 6; not all the times Harry glared at the camera; not the time Gil spared Fleet or cried over the corpse of his competition, and they used to play that last one all the time. But no, nothing revolutionary. And he said 'our' victors. 'Our', as in the Capitol. Like we don't belong to the districts anymore. He's cutting us off so that we're impossible to rally behind, uprooting us and putting us in his vase."_

It brushed on a lot of what they had just seen, and the grimness of the words made Gil's stomach tighten. So, Snow was painting them as his puppets before the districts.

But Uma still had the pen. And she was tapping it against her knee pensively. Having vented on the paper, it seemed that a cool pragmatism had washed over her.

 _"But we're alive,"_ she wrote more neatly. _"We still have some control. He put us in a bad position, but we can still make him regret doing this. Even more once CJ ages out of the reaping."_

Harry took the pen. _"You know he'll make sure she gets reaped. He'll do it, and we won't be there to mentor her."_

Gil's heart broke a little for Harry: the boy who had painted himself with blood, showered in it, to ward off those who would do him harm; the boy who, even now, seemed to wear the invisible blood-spatters of his enemies everywhere he went, and yet who still always seemed to have more enemies. Gil saw the same heartbrokenness in Uma's eyes, veiled though it was by steel and determination.

The pen went to her again, and Harry's eyes were shards of blue glass as he watched her write. _"She has what we've told her before; we've both taken her aside about it at least once. And she'll have sponsors hurling themselves at her. But to keep her out of the arena entirely, we'll need power that we don't have yet. By setting us up like this, Snow has given us the ability to grab some power. And then we'll tear him to shreds for even thinking of hurting CJ."_

Harry's shoulders relaxed slightly. He was looking at Uma like he fully believed that she could pull the Capitol apart as easily as a school child pulls petals off of a flower, and like he couldn't wait to watch her do it. Gil looked at Uma and remembered the girl who would rather set fire to a lake with herself in it than give away her life. She was always fighting so hard; he wondered how he could make it easier for her.

He couldn't help feeling like it was his job to heal what was hurt inside them.

When _Mulan_ was hurting, she always threw herself into her hobbies, which was why Gil asked Uma, "So, your hobby is cooking, isn't it?"

Uma frowned slightly, perplexed by the change of subject and by his speaking aloud, but conceded, "Yes. I'm no Tiana, but I know how to make something edible that they can take pictures of, and that was the point."

"Plus, they always ask her to cook a _lot_ of food, for the photo shoots," Harry added, seeming to relax completely, now, as he stretched out along the foot of the bed, "which means they send a lot of supplies, which means a lot of leftovers to take to our old neighborhoods."

"Oh." Gil considered this; Uma had chosen a hobby of convenience. The way she probably saw it, she was going out of her way for the Capitol as little as possible and minimizing how well they knew her: she cooked, since she would need to eat anyway, and they gathered footage and went on their way. "Then what do you _really_ like doing?"

"I wanted to study law. Apparently it's not an interesting hobby, and it's also illegal."

"It's illegal to study law?" Gil repeated. "I didn't know that."

"That's because it's illegal to study law, mate," Harry snorted.

"Don't stress," Uma added, putting her hands on Gil's shoulders. "It's my job to stress."

"Why?"

"Because I've been a victor the longest."

"That's not fair; then you'll be the saddest out of all of us."

Rather than confirm or deny, Uma cracked a half-smile that seemed oddly more real than her full-teeth smiles. "Well, that's my job, too." Then suddenly, she sprang to her feet, one hand outstretched to each of them. "Now come on; let's see what ingredients we've got downstairs. With any luck, we can whip up a batch of booze cookies and then head to the music room."

The music room meant that they weren't talking about serious things anymore.

Harry cheered at the mention of booze cookies.

 

Uma watched their note paper burn on the stove while Harry riffled through the booze cabinet and Gil talked the cat down from the countertop. Tiana was hovering, because she was supposed to stay in the kitchen area, but she did not intervene in their antics aside from pointing Harry to the alcohol when asked.

"That's a lot of bottles," Gil observed, since the cat was off the counter now and he could see the spread that Harry was appraising.

"So many bottles," Harry agreed almost salaciously, draping an arm around Gil's shoulders. Uma liked seeing them stand together, liked how Harry sought out physical contact with Gil and Gil melted into Harry's touch. They made each other feel good- comforted each other, which comforted her.

She forced her gaze away to ensure that the note burnt entirely; no legible traces.

The stove's blue flames reminded Uma of Harry's eyes, but the heat they gave off made her feel like the fire was trying to reclaim her. It was probably a symptom of the Games screwing with her mind or something, but Uma always had the feeling that fire still resented being wielded by her, and resented even more that she had survived it. In the months immediately following her victory, this feeling had manifested itself in unhealthy habits: "appeasing the fire", was how she had seen it, "letting the fire have a taste", but really it was just burning herself. Small burns. She had broken from the habit sporadically (quicker, once Harry had moved in) and was out of it altogether now. But her relationship with fire still felt...loaded.

She turned off the stove, now that the paper had been reduced to crispy black flakes. Even if the Capitol had ways of reading off of burnt paper, which she wouldn't put past them, there was no way they could reassemble the page. Satisfied, Uma dug ingredients for the batter out of the refrigerator.

"There's wine," Gil offered.

"How potent?" Uma asked.

"Not bloody potent enough," Harry answered.

"We need that alcohol content. What else ya got?"

"There's schnapps." Gil held up an orange bottle. Butterscotch flavored, with a decent concentration; that had potential.

Uma dug a bag of chocolate chips out of the fridge and weighed it in her hand.

An hour later, Harry was aggressively serenading them in the music room, and Gil had chocolate on his fingers and that cat in his lap (which led to him hastening to suck the chocolate off his fingers, because the cat kept trying to lick at it and Gil explained that it was toxic to cats).

Uma drifted around the space, trying to wrap herself in the moment, but the thought of Snow's smug face, his manipulative words, kept her suspended. He hadn't just torpedoed their image, hadn't just isolated them from their people; this had been an attack on _her_ personally. Any other punishment he could have handed her, she would have borne as the cost of rebellion, but making her one of his lackeys? His instrument of torment against other victors? And making it impossible to simply refuse, with CJ on the line?

A master move. A crushing blow.

But she'd had worse taken from her than her honor before.

How she was going to destroy him. She was going to absolutely disembowel him, but not before he watched his brilliant plan crumble.

"Uma?"

She returned to Earth.

Harry had been playing faster and louder, to get her attention, but it was Gil who had called to her, tentatively. It was hard to look directly at his concerned face, but she did anyway. He was like sunlight on the surface of the sea, a blinding and relaxing counterpoint to Harry's invigorating riptide.

Ugh, was she sappy? Did schnapps turn her sappy? She was never drinking this stuff again. Or eating it. Freaking butterscotch.

"I'm fine, Gil," she said. "Just thinking."

"You look like you're upsetting yourself," Gil accused.

"Drop it, Gil." And while he didn't press the issue verbally, the concerned look stayed on his face. Uma understood, fundamentally, why he should be worried; she had been the one to drag him into this, to offer him safety. If he thought that she was showing weakness instead of just rage, well of course that was worrying. He had taken a leap of faith.

Gil was a survivor, in ways that, despite having won the Hunger Games, weren't immediately obvious. His trust was an all-or-nothing deal; once earned, it was fully given. Uma knew who _she_ was; she was vicious. Truly vicious, much more so than Harry, because _her_ cruelty was premeditated. And no one gave a truly vicious person their heart except for protection. Gil probably wasn't consciously aware of that aspect of it, but it was true.

Her worst self was out there for everyone to see; her worst acts could never be taken back. And somehow she had been granted two people to love, cursed to die their deaths as well as her own.

But she was a survivor, too.

Harry's song came to an end, the last chords diluting in the cookie-scented air and his fingers rising away from the keys carefully, like he was letting them sleep. He had said to her, once, "If I were reaped the same year as you, you would still be a victor, love." He had meant it in a sweet way, a lay-down-my-life way, but the idea haunted her.

"Are we, uh...?" Gil trailed off, looking embarrassed.

"Are we what?" Uma asked.

"Never mind. It was a stupid question."

"Well, you're in luck; I love stupid questions. Lay it on me." She exchanged a partly-amused look with Harry.

"Are we...I was _going to_ ask if we're gonna...gonna _use_ our, uh...'free morning'."

Ah, so that was why he was embarrassed.

"Probably not," Uma said honestly. "Not for That, at least; we have a meeting with dear, sweet, precious President Snow at noon, so we should be ready- have a list of questions for him and whatnot."

Gil nodded, still avoiding eye contact.

"Did you want to?" Uma asked, somewhat curious. _Have you ever?_

"Not if you don't want to," was Gil's quick reply, which, while not strictly an answer to the question she had asked, was a great response. "I mean..."

"It's okay if you wanted to," Uma said, unable to keep from smiling. "Or if you didn't."

"I did," Harry contributed.

"We know, Harry."

"Still do."

"We know, Harry."

This got a smile out of Gil.

Harry reached and grabbed another cookie from the cookie plate and took a huge bite from it. Ignoring her oath to herself to never have schnapps again, Uma took the rest of his cookie.

It wasn't a long term solution, but being intoxicated helped to strip away the reservations of her mind and access her most ridiculous goals on at least a cognitive level. She needed it, right now. Later on she would plan, and read, and pace, but right now she needed the disinhibitor to allow her to think, _We are not going to sell out other victors. We will find loopholes, find ways to do our jobs without selling out other victors. We will use our new position, use "Sisyphus's Reward", to break open the Capitol at the fault lines, at the veins, and rain retribution on Snow, Snow's advisors, the Gamemakers..._ Despite obsessing about overthrowing those disgusting monsters, Uma didn't have any particular thoughts on what to do with them once they were no longer threats. Harry had more than a few, though; she would let him have his closure on them. And Gil could have as many cats as he wanted.

She knew that she could take down the Capitol, because she was vicious like they were vicious.

Snow knew it; that was why he kept trying to break her.

She was _his_ fire: the tool he shouldn't have used, shouldn't have survived, couldn't control.

Uma spun to the music- a recording, this time -and laughed as Harry and Gil competed over how many cookies they could fit in their mouths. Gil won, and Uma laughed harder as Harry found himself stuck with five cookies stacked between his teeth and a jaw that didn't want to close. She laughed so hard, she staggered into Gil, who dutifully caught her even though she wasn't falling. His muscles were sturdy against her back.

Harry looked at both of them with glassy eyes. "Help?" he said through the cookies.

Uma was pleased to watch him struggle a little longer, but after a second, Gil suddenly leaned over, bit through the stack so that the half that had been sticking out of Harry's mouth landed in his, and withdrew with his mouth full and his face aflame.

Seeing these sorts of gestures from the outside was so surreal. _Weirdos,_ she thought with good humor as she watched the boys chew their cookie halves, Harry's eyes never leaving Gil and Gil's eyes lingering around Harry's chest. He was still wearing Gil's shirt. Was Gil into that? Because she was wearing his shirt, too.

The thought made her feel sort of tingly.

Yeah, no more schnapps. That was enough disinhibition.

Now she had work to do.

 

When Gil opened his eyes the next morning, it was to the sound of a shower running. Harry's sleeping face was inches away, his pink lips slightly parted and his hair beautifully disheveled. It was unclear whether Uma had come to bed at all, but she was up now. Up and getting ready.

Gil blamed his past (drunk) self for Uma having been in the study alone last night; he had allowed her to send him to bed while she stayed up, because bed had sounded really, really good at the time, and she had assured him that she wanted him to rest, and Harry to rest, and she wanted to stay up. He should have stayed up with her. She was always taking things on herself and refusing to let him worry about it.

 _Which makes this a real Legume relationship, doesn't it?_ He could just hear his brothers laughing at how he had stumbled into a woman who _wanted_ to handle everything, and he was begging her to let him share the load. The face his father would make.

Gil slid out of bed. If Uma was going to carry them in terms of planning, the least he could do was get breakfast made, then.

He must have been half-asleep; it wasn't until he was practically reaching for the kitchen door that he remembered Tiana and registered the sound of things already sizzling. Was he allowed to help? He didn't want to bother her or get her in trouble; he backed away from the kitchen.

Well, what now? He needed to make himself useful somehow.

Just as he was starting to head back to the bedroom, maybe pick out his clothes for the day or something (though it'd be easier to gage the dress code based on what Uma was wearing), there was a knock at the front door.

He crossed the teal entry room and again found himself hovering uncertainly next to a door. Uma was in the shower, and Harry was asleep. Was it okay to open the door by himself, here? Behind him, Ella emerged from a side room, looking as if she had been about to answer the door herself, before pausing when she noticed him already there. Right; answering the door was something "servants" did. Well, if a "servant" could do it, _he_ probably could, right?

Without Uma or Harry...

The insistent pace of the knocking won out; he turned the doorknob and had barely pulled the door open when Miss Fairy was forcing herself in, babbling, "Finally! You only have four hours before you're expected to meet with President Snow. You're not dressed! Are you all awake, at least? The president's order that your morning be left free until you meet with him means I couldn't get a prep team over; you'll have to do it all on your o-"

Then she broke off, staring past Gil as if the wall behind him bore a mural of her decapitation, or hardcore nudity, or something like that. Gil looked behind himself, but he only saw Ella, swiftly returning to the side room from which she'd come.

Miss Fairy cleared her throat, then swallowed, then shook her head, all seemingly with the intention of brushing past the moment, but she didn't keep talking and still seemed rattled as she mutely proceeded through the front room, towards the hallway. It was weird to see someone with baby blue hair be this solemn.

"Never seen an Avox before?" Gil guessed, even though the idea of being a professional in the Capitol who had _never_ seen an Avox seemed ludicrous even to him.

"I've seen plenty," was Fairy's quiet reply.

Okay.

"Are the others awake?" the woman asked again, this time clearly trying to sound as she had before.

"I'll go get them," Gil said. "You can, uh, get something to eat in the kitchen. There's an Avox in there, too, though."

"I'm sure there is."

Just as Miss Fairy was turning toward the kitchen door- of course she already knew where the kitchen was -, there was a shout from the direction of the bedroom. A Harry shout, definitely.

Gil left Fairy and broke into a run without a second thought, bursting into the room so suddenly that he startled Harry, who was sitting up and ostensibly awake but seemed to be halfway in a nightmare, his hands in a white-knuckled grip on the bedpost. Uma was out of the bathroom but clearly hadn't planned to be; she was only in a bra and boy shorts and _Wow,_ Gil wished he didn't have to make that such a low priority. She was holding Harry's face between her hands and earnestly saying, "Hey! I'm here! I'm here."

Harry's eyes seemed to adjust to his surroundings- to the lack of threats and to each of them -and then he closed them and nodded. He looked slightly upset with himself.

"What happened? I just left a few minutes ago," Gil said, panicked by Harry's panic.

"I should've told you, this sometimes happens when he's in bed alone." Uma caressed Harry's face one last time before bringing her hands down. (He tilted his head slightly as if trying to follow her hand.) "He's just used to shar-" And now Uma was the one who broke off, staring past Gil, and her expression morphed into one of outrage. "Little privacy, Miss Fairy?" she demanded.

So the woman had followed Gil, then.

Fairy took a few uncomfortable steps back from the doorway. "What's wrong with him?" she asked, as if she couldn't help herself.

"Nothing," Uma ground out, taking long strides to shut the door while Harry managed to tighten his hands on the bedpost even more.

"I'm sorry I left," Gil breathed.

"Always blaming yourself for things," Harry mumbled, his eyes still closed.

"Harry, I can tell you're projecting nightmares on your eyelids; I can see the light from here." Uma's hand went out to Gil, and she pulled him closer. "Look at us, love."

Harry's eyelids parted, like opening a window to a pale blue sky. (Wait, that didn't make sense; windows are clear, so you could already see the sky. Gil wished he were better with words.) For a second he just looked at the two of them, the nightmares just out of reach. Then a corner of his mouth rose. "I hope you won't be seeing Snow in _that_ , darling," he teased, making a show of appreciating Uma's state of undress. "I think we'd have to carve his eyes out, wouldn't we, Gilly?"

Uma chuckled, drawing back now that things were fine. "Don't get hanged on my account."

"Oh, I'm hung regardless," Harry said with a cheeky smile and a wink at Gil that was completely unfair because of course he started blushing.

Uma flicked him off, retrieved her clothes from the bathroom, and dressed in front of them. She had chosen another one of Gil's shirts (tan and loose-fitting, but barely past her navel; it was probably meant to be a half-shirt, on him) and a pair of shiny, teal pants that were form-fitting with a lot of zippers.

Gil liked the idea that she would just be borrowing his shirts regularly.

"Well, get dressed," she suggested, buckling her ankle-boots.

They did- all of them in Gil's shirts (although Harry layered one of his own shirts over his Gil shirt so that he retained the netted look without the transparency) and each other's jewelry. Harry applied his thick eyeliner, and Uma applied a lipstick that matched her pants, and Gil applied a bit of blush, because Uma said it would be helpful if he kept looking like an "innocent dove". He supposed the implied rest of the sentence was "...instead of the ruthless victor they're painting all of us as".

They ate a deeply uncomfortable breakfast with Fairy, who kept her eyes down on her plate as if worried that Ella would appear again if she looked up for even a second.

"So where are we meeting Snow?" Harry asked lazily.

" _President_ Snow," Uma casually corrected, even though Fairy seemed too lost in thought to be appalled at their irreverence.

"You'll be meeting him in his house, of course," the woman said distantly. "His manor. I certainly hope he'll understand that your casual appearance can be blamed on your lack of a prep team."

"Here's hoping," Uma said, her eyes lingering on Miss Fairy as if wondering how best to fit her into their plans.

They rode a car to Snow's house. It was a giant mansion, but not a totally unfamiliar one; it was on TV often enough, and Gil had ridden here in his chariot just like every tribute.

"You're not leaving that in the car?" Fairy asked, sounding alarmed. She was looking at the pad of paper (where Uma had written her questions and notes) as if it were a child's embarrassing plaything.

"Are you suggesting I hold a meeting with the president without any notes?" Uma asked, which effectively torpedoed any arguments Fairy could make; the woman murmured something about making sure to have notecards bought for them later:

"Less ostentatious, at least."

Then they were at the huge Presidential Palace doors, which was as far as Fairy was authorized to go. They were led through confusing hallways by alternating guards until they reached the president's study, where the guard knocked for them.

For a while, there was no answer. Harry started to whistle, his hands in his pockets. Uma scowled at the door as they waited, probably imagining the sorts of horrible things Snow had done in here: speeches he had written, calls he had made. Maybe he had killed Mulan's children from this room. Now _Gil_ was scowling at the door.

Then a voice called from within: "Enter."

The door opened.

Predictably, the room was enormous, opulent, and so full of books that Gil wished he could get away with stealing some for Uma. Snow was seated at a polished desk, and the moment he found himself in the man's line of sight, Gil wanted to cave in on himself. And Snow was as smartly dressed as usual, and he was calm, and he was collected, and he was ostensibly pleased to see them.

What he was _not_ , was alone.

Also in the room, standing close, but not friendly-close, to his desk, with her hands holding her elbows to illustrate her discomfort but her posture straight and tall to illustrate her dignity, was a girl around their age with hair dyed dark blue and a remote expression in place. She outdressed them by far, if that was a thing that mattered; her outfit- a dress with sleeves but no shoulders, and with pants on under it for some reason -was utterly her own and suited her regal demeanor. Every stitch of clothing on her body was navy except for her fingerless gloves and glittery headband, which were both red. Gil had never met her, but he knew her. She had won the year before Harry.

"Welcome, you three," Snow said. "I'm sure I don't have to introduce Miss Evelyn Grimhilde."

"Evie," the girl introduced herself, fluidly extending a hand to shake.

Gil took it upon himself to shake it, since Harry wasn't going to and Uma was about to _actually_ rip Snow's eyes out.

"I didn't know you were inviting other victors already, Mr. President," she said sharply.

"I wanted to make sure Sisyphus's Reward got off to a smooth start," Snow answered, almost innocently. His eyes landed on each of them in turn, and when the snake's smile was turned on _him_ , Gil found it hard to breathe, but he kept eye contact and kept up his scowl because Mulan's children were dead and facing this fear was, like, the bare minimum of a first step to protecting Harry and Uma. He held the snake's gaze, and the snake's smile grew. "Won't you three sit down?"

They sat, because it wasn't a question, and the study door closed behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, you guys are awesome. Thanks so much for the support! Keep commenting; I love to read your thoughts! It's also helpful to know if the stuff I wrote came across right.
> 
> P.S.: If there's ever a story I wish I could read (so feel free to run with it if you want to, and tag me!), it's Huma right before and during Harry's Games; the mentor-tribute dynamic has so much potential, and I wish this fic had more room to go into it.
> 
> P.P.S.: I uploaded this at 3 a.m., so...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you really hate cameos, I'm just going to apologize ahead of time. I'm pretty sure there's only one (1) character in this thing who isn't from something else.

It was blatantly obvious why Snow had chosen Evie Grimhilde as their first victim.

It wasn't because they were friends or enemies or even personally acquainted; Harry had never seen the girl except through a screen, and while Uma had been a mentor the year Evie won her Games, to the best of his knowledge the two had never conversed. And Gil almost certainly had never had an opportunity to meet her.

No, Snow's choice wasn't personal in _that_ way, but the intention was still transparent.

Evie was young, she was beautiful, she was openly leered-after; he didn't have to draw them a diagram. Not allowing her to be used by the Capitol's wealthiest lechers was going to be their first challenge, and no small one, and Snow had unfairly chosen to hand them this one first.

The barest glance at Evie herself made it clear that she, too, knew why she was here; her red lips were pressed together, her dark brown gaze cold as ice. If it came down to it, Harry knew that he would sell her out for Uma and Gil and CJ. He wasn't _proud_ of the fact, and he wished he didn't know that about himself, but it was true. Fortunately, that wasn't on the table, because Uma was not him. Finding a third option was one of her greatest skills, an awe-inspiring byproduct of her tenacity and her cleverness.

"Sir," Uma said, her tone absolutely saccharine, "if I may ask, what exactly are you doing?" Just like in their last meeting, both she and Snow had their hands on the desk. Her pad of notes was sitting ignored in her lap. Harry took it, just to have something to do with his hands; as always, being this close to the tormentor of himself and his loved ones made it rather necessary to keep track of his hands at all times.

"Miss Triskelion, I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific," Snow said.

"This Sisyphus's Reward thing," Uma said.

"Weren't you the one who suggested that I 'recontextualize your relationship as something mandated'?" Snow pointed out.

"I said to punish _me_."

"You what?" Gil spluttered, but Harry shook his head grimly. Now wasn't the time to hash those sorts of things out; it honestly probably wasn't a good time for either of them to speak at all. Uma was the one who had planned for this.

(She and Snow had been dancing this dance for years, and Uma had pried tiny victories out of him long enough for this to be personal. Harry remembered watching his screen in awe when she lit the lake, watching, in somehow-greater awe, what managed to air of her speech to District 2. It had been nothing explicitly revolutionary- more a declaration of personal accountability than a rallying cry -but still nothing like what a victor was supposed to say; victory was supposed to be all posing and boasting and parties and wealth. But then she had given _that_ speech, and a few sentences in the television had suddenly gone silent, the image fizzled with static (which Harry had kept staring at for more than a few seconds, as if hoping he might be able to see her through it). And then Ursula, Uma's mother, had promptly died under mysterious circumstances, and Snow'd had no reason to believe that that wouldn't devastate her, no reason to think that Uma's mother had been, if anything, doing his job for him. Harry remembered seeing Uma at Ursula's funeral, not smiling but worlds from mourning, smoldering with a determined energy that was just so magnetic, even then. Killing Ursula had been a misstep; instead of punishing her, Snow had lightened Uma's load, and she had invited the destitute children into her house as soon as her mother wasn't there to stop her. Harry remembered sending CJ to sleep over in Victor's Village every cold night, and having her return home with color in her cheeks and a well-filled stomach. Snow put a stop to that through the Peacekeepers' ban on any more Victor's Village sleepovers, and tesserae was mysteriously lacking for months after. Harry remembered it taking three or four tesserae to earn him what _one_ had gotten them before. (No wonder he had eventually gotten reaped, himself.) And of course Uma had tried to cushion the blow with her cooking "hobby", which demanded that she receive large amounts of food that could later be distributed on the sly, but she couldn't feed an entire District by herself. Small victories, great consequences. Never quite a violation of law from her, and never quite a death sentence from him. But always a lesson. So Uma knew this game best.)

The president didn't seem to have even noticed Gil's interjection.

"Don't tell me you don't feel rather punished." Snow smiled. "Now, if your qualm is over the fact that I didn't _martyr_ you, then, Uma, I wonder exactly how stupid you think I am."

Without breaking eye contact with Snow, Uma swiftly but casually laid a quelling hand on Harry, knowing his mind too well; for his part, Harry only gave a long exhale (albeit a _quite_ audible one), even though it was utterly killing him to not give a colorful and frankly immature response.

Evie wandered to a window and started staring out of it, as if entirely too above this conversation to feign interest, which Harry thought a pretty uppity move from someone Uma was trying to fight for.

"What exactly is our job?" Uma asked, lowering her hand back to the desk and tilting her head slightly.

"As always, your job is entertainment," Snow said simply. "Although, there's a bit more to it, now. More accurately, your job is _noise_."

"Noise?" Gil repeated. He was sitting forward, leaning somewhat on the desk in order to look at Snow _through_ a glass paperweight that was sitting near the desk's edge. There was a frown on his face, either from focusing on the distorted image or just from distaste for Snow in general. It was quite cute.

Again, the president ignored him. "You and I both know that victors are a singularly admired subset of the population- beloved of the Capitol and the districts alike."

"Funny kind of love," Uma said placidly.

"Enjoyed, then." Snow seemed to care little about the difference. "A victor to a Capitol citizen is a celebrity; to those in the districts, a victor is a subversion of fear, a beacon of hope. And that makes them singularly dangerous."

It should have pleased Harry to hear Snow admit the danger posed by victors, but instead it made him uncomfortable; you didn't want your opponent to know where the threats were coming from. Not when the opponent had as disproportionate a degree of power as Snow had.

Uma put on a smile, and it wasn't her fake-sweet smile or any version of her real smile, but what Harry would call her bare-minimum smile; a slight arc of the lips, backed by no particular emotion. She prompted, "You still haven't explained what our job is."

"Your job is to keep victors in public consumption. How you do it, I am overall leaving to your judgement- romance, festivities, cosmetic surgery, what have you -, but some of the Gamemakers will be closely overseeing the results; if at any time our celebrities begin to fall _out_ of focus, then _I_ will decide how you go about returning to the public consciousness, and I think we both know that you wouldn't like that."

"So you want us to stay in the news," Uma surmised, the ' _What else is new?_ ' implied. She was misunderstanding on purpose, though; it was clear that what Snow was proposing went farther than the expected norm for victors.

"More than that, my dear." (He was going to **have** to stop calling her that.) "It takes a lot to satisfy our rabid audience, to keep their attention. I want the victors' presence to be _felt_ , in the Capitol. I want the victors' accessibility to be so understood that my citizens feel as though they could pluck any one of you from a tree, if they so chose. And yet, I also want the prestige and desirability to remain intact. In essence, I want victors to cease to be tantalizing commodities from Somewhere Else."

"No, you'd rather we be fancy playthings from nowhere."

"You'll receive one of the Gamemakers' raters- it's a device that will show you the extent to which you've managed to stay in the public eye. And I suggest you make it a priority to keep the public's sole, unblinking attention."

"To what end?"

Snow chuckled as if they were friends, and Harry almost gave himself a papercut, gripping the notepad so tightly. "What reason do you think I have to light so many stars? The public eye can be blinded just as well as any other."

"Overexposure." Uma sat back, crossing her arms. "Noise."

"Well, your little stunt with Mr. Legume" (Gil sat up, then, with a look on his face like a kicked puppy; Harry squeezed his knee comfortingly and glared at the president, who of course wasn't looking their way anyhow.) "espoused a sentiment of unity between the districts, and we certainly can't have that. The only way to diffuse the precedent _you've_ chosen to set, short of persecuting you in a way that would be instantly unpopular, is to establish that victors are not part of the districts. Rather, after one wins the Hunger Games, one enters the pool of, as you so delicately put it, 'playthings'. Perhaps a less desirable outcome than being left alone to wallow in one's District with only occasional visits to the Capitol, but more desirable than _losing_ the Games, so the hope remains. Isolating victors from District consumption whilst simultaneously inundating the District audience and the Capitol audience with victor-related content will remove victors' status as entities to rally behind. And rather than reflecting on your boldness in defying me, the victors and the Districts will inevitably be reflecting on how your selfishness ultimately worsened their lot."

Uma was sitting still, her expression close to blank with just the barest hint of polite interest, but Harry knew her well enough to detect the signs that she was seething.

"More on the specifics of your job," Snow continued, and for once his gaze flicked away from Uma, seemingly just to enjoy Harry's silent glower for a moment, "you will also be the ones receiving the calls soliciting the company of our more desired victors. It would be impossible for you to satisfy them all, but failing to satisfy any of them is something I would advise against. If you anger your audience, I will have to take action. And again, you don't want me to have to do that."

Uma nodded, still with that polite expression of vague interest.

"Also, you will be expected to report regularly to Adam Beast."

Harry's dam broke. "The Beast?!" he exclaimed, furious. Gil took Harry's hand in both of his own, which only barely took the edge off of the rage. Evie turned away from the window to fire a plaintive look in Harry's direction. And Uma...

...cleared her throat, still in her eerie calm. "We're big fans," she said smoothly. "We'd love nothing more than to work with your Head...Gamemaker." Only the brief pause between 'Head' and 'Gamemaker' indicated that she wanted to say something less complimentary. They had certainly called Beast their share of other names in the privacy of their home in 4; it was likely that an insult came more naturally to her than his title.

"That's so good to hear. Adam will be the one ensuring that you and your fellow victors are remaining at the optimal level of popularity. He will also give you suggestions for how to improve your results. As I'm sure you're aware, Adam has a great talent for entertainment."

"Quite so; he helped make us famous." The words came out as melodic and hollow as a struck bell. They- Uma and Snow -were being utterly cordial, and the air itself seemed to itch with tension, like lightning was about to strike.

Himself, Harry was positively shaking at the idea of any of them having to interact with the Head Gamemaker; there were times when The Beast was higher on his kill list than Snow was. The nightmares he'd caused for all of them...

"Is that all?" Evie asked loftily. She strode back over to the desk, her gait slow and graceful in an utterly deliberate way. But then, that was probably one of the things they taught in District 1. Striding and twirling and cutting throats and wearing jewels. They learned to be products, to be commodities, at a young age, there; it was almost something to be pitied, but it beat _dying_ at a young age. The tributes from 1- trophies -and the tributes from 2- soldiers -were never the first to die. "Their car has come back, so I assume the meeting is over."

"Yes," Snow drawled, with a casual glance at the intricately-adorned, golden clock on his wall, because heaven forbid he have to tell time like a bloody human. "Their prep team will need time to work on them before their interview with Caesar. And I hope they know that their wardrobe was not chosen with the intention that they all wear Mr. Legume's shirts every day."

"Your audience will just think it's cute," Uma said, rising to her feet at the implication that their meeting was drawing to a close. (Harry was quick to follow suit; the sooner he ceased polluting his lungs with Snow's air, the better. Gil rose, as well, almost knocking the glass paperweight off of the desk but managing to catch it and right it at the last second.)

"Victors aren't cute."

"Is that why you messed with Gil's footage like that yesterday?" Now, just a bit of bite had worked its way into Uma's tone.

Snow chuckled. "They in no way altered the original footage."

"No, but you cut it together in a tricky way," Uma said. "Left stuff out to change the context. I'm sure your citizens noticed."

"Perhaps. Perhaps in the backs of their minds they stopped to think that the editing was strange." Snow sounded very much like he was indulging them for his own amusement, at this point. He pressed a button on the underside of his desk, and the study door opened behind them. "You should go, now. Miss Grimhilde will be staying in one of your spare rooms, although we'll be moving her in a little later, in the cover of night; her role here is going to be a fun surprise for the audience, and it wouldn't do to spoil it."

"So she won't be seeing Caesar with us?" Uma surmised, her eyes landing on Evie thoughtfully. (Evie met her gaze, and she was not hostile, but not remotely warm.)

"Oh no; that spotlight, you three get to enjoy on your own."

Uma turned away, briskly, from Snow's smile, and she led the way out of the study. They followed the guards through the mad, twisted hallways again, and Harry fought down the urge to tear, shatter, and stomp the wealthy decor. It turned his stomach, how a single room in this disgusting palace could feed an entire district, if pawned for half its worth.

But Uma was leading the way, so no matter his outrage, it wasn't too hard to keep moving. Instead of eyeing up every priceless trinket and letting his fury build, he focused on her. First he scanned for any sign that she was upset enough to require comfort; she was not. From the looks of it, she was simmering, which usually meant no physical contact of any kind. Which meant he could allow himself to just...watch. The way that she walked, as if she could feel that she was leading the way for multitudes, the tormented living and the unavenged dead, pulling them along after her but not impeded by their weight. Purposeful. For his part, Harry knew that when _he_ followed her, it felt like every step he took was a step closer to impaling Snow's head on that stupid jewel-adorned coat rack. She inspired a confidence that dulled the hopeless anger that had festered in him since childhood.

Also, she was an utter vision from every angle, and walking behind her provided more aspects to appreciate than were always visible from the front.

Fairy Lady collected them at the door. "How was it?" she asked, her tight skirt forcing her to take hilariously-small steps so that she was practically running just to keep pace with them in their leisurely walk to the car. "He didn't say anything about your drab appearance, did he? And you were polite?"

"'Course we were polite; he's the _president_ , Miss Fairy," Harry replied, quite innocently.

"You _have_ been to the Capitol many times; I suppose you've learned _something,"_ Fairy mused. "You wouldn't believe the kinds of casual behavior I've seen, though. Some of the meetings I've been to- it would _astound_ you. As if they just don't teach District children how to talk to important people."

"Do you normally go _in_ side the mansion, then?" Gil asked, sounding legitimately curious. "Because, they didn't let you in this time."

Harry didn't even fight the grin that appeared on his face at Gil's completely unmalicious insult to the Capitol woman. (Gil was _quite_ honest, and more observant than most people cared to notice or admit, and he did not restrain these virtues much for the sake of tact. It was beautiful, to Harry, how Gil often managed to redirect conversations in unexpected ways by catching on to some nuance of phrasing or implication.) In front of them, Uma ducked her head for a moment to smother a smile of her own.

"I," Fairy said, with immense composure, after an offended pause, "am not important."

"Sure you are, Miss Fairy; you're our coordinator," Uma said, standing back to let Harry open the car door for her and flashing Fairy an ostensibly-earnest smile.

Apparently, Fairy was easily flattered. "Thank you dear," she said, with a pleased look that did not go away even as they were all climbing into their seats and buckling in.

The car pulled away from the president's mansion, and the mansion was devoured up by the horizon like the chum it was, not nearly fast enough for Harry's liking.

 

Tiana had prepared lunch for them by the time they arrived at the house. It was rice (which reminded Gil, achingly, of Mulan; he had never even _seen_ rice until he was first invited to dine at her house, as the Legume family was not known for their complexity of diet) and shrimp (some of which was hand-fed to Gray, and the cat slinked away satisfied), all smothered in an orangey sauce, and it was every bit as heavenly as yesterday's soup and today's breakfast. There was some sort of vegetable with it, too; some cylindrical, yellow thing that intimidated Gil with its unfamiliarity.

"She says it's called maize," Uma explained, since Fairy wasn't eating with them this time (She was out, all in a tizzy, demanding after the prep team who _"were supposed to be here by now!"_ ) and she could be open about communicating with the Avoxes. "She said it's what this morning's grits were made of."

Gil picked up the maize. "Is this _bone_ , in the middle?" Then common sense (and experience) had him answering himself, "No; no marrow. Must just be the core. Do I eat around it?"

Once he finally had an understanding of how the vegetable worked exactly, he ate all of it fairly quickly.

"It squirts," Uma observed, looking slightly off-put.

"Does the shrimp remind you of home?" Gil asked. It wasn't like he was going to find a better way to integrate into the conversation this question he'd been wanting to ask since sitting at the table. This was maybe his third time having shrimp, total, in his entire life, but Uma and Harry...well, they were from 4.

"It does," Uma said, mopping maize juice from her fingers. "Definitely for me, at least; I came up in a part of the District that specialized in shellfish and shallow water stuff. Harry's area was more about the deep-water catches."

"Deep water?" Gil repeated.

"Bigger fish. You know those pictures of fishing vessels they like to put up whenever they're talking about District 4?"

"Ugh, those boats. Dad used to wake us up before sunrise and make us go out sailing with him; they left so bloody early," Harry reminisced. "We hated it every time. It was crowded, we were the only kids there, the rope cut our hands, and CJ always went back to sleep in a pile of old nets as soon as we set off. The sunrises were stunning, though."

Gil wasn't sure how his heart could even handle the mental image of a young Harry standing on a fishing boat, holding his bleeding palms in front of him or to the side, watching a beautiful sunrise.

"I always used to want to ride the boats," Uma sighed.

Adding the image of a young Uma to the picture literally made him want to cry.

"Would that we'd known each other then; I'd have brought you along."

"Oh, Ursula Triskelion would have _loved_ that." Uma chuckled.

(Gil was ecstatic to hear more about Uma's and Harry's lives in their District, and terrified that something would break the spell of nostalgia and they would stop talking. It wasn't that they never spoke of their past- they did -but their brief anecdotes and explanations never seemed to entirely sate his curiosity, and every time, Gil found himself noticing something new, like how Uma alternated between calling her mother "Mom" and "Ursula", and how Harry's stories all seemed to involve him getting hurt somehow.)

"Mom never exactly woke me up early, but she always got mad if I slept in. Which I didn't. I used to get in trouble for actually going to school," Uma said, with slight grim amusement at what had clearly once been painful. "Basically, all the other poor kids used to go out to the shallows during the day, went crabbing under the older docks and stuff. We couldn't keep the crabs, but when we turned them in we got a little money from the Dock Manager. But I wanted to be in school, because I hated not understanding things while the rich kids got smarter and smarter. Every now and then, I went to class instead of the docks. Pissed Mom off."

"She should've been proud of you," Gil found himself saying. He should know; becoming intelligent was not easy, and Uma was so smart.

But she shrugged almost diplomatically, scraping her plate clean with the side of her fork. "My sisters were dying. I could've probably gotten over myself long enough to earn them some medicine. Now, how about you?" She ingested her last forkful and pushed her plate away. "You got any stories?"

So they weren't dwelling on what she had just said, apparently. Now she wanted to hear from him.

A story.

So many stories. "I collected chickens' eggs. Before that I skinned cows, but I, uh...couldn't handle it. So they fired me. Everyone kinda made fun of me a lot for that, kind of all the time. But collecting the eggs was a lot better. Chickens are nice. Roosters really, really aren't."

"Don't tell me you've got something against cocks, mate," Harry quipped, patting Gil on the shoulder.

(Uma snorted at the well-timed comment, which clearly delighted Harry.)

"You've clearly never met a rooster." Gil was only half-joking, and the semi-earnestness seemed to only make it funnier to them. "Anyway, I had to climb around a lot to get to all the coops, so I actually did build a lot of muscle, even though Grif, Gabe and Gaston Jr said that egg collecting is women's work."

"'Even though'?" Uma echoed.

Gil winced, immediately backpedaling. "Sorry, was that wrong? Mulan says I'm still 'unlearning' a lot of the stuff they said."

"Unlearning's hard; I get it. That much I can help with."

Tiana leaned in to grab their plates and silverware.

"Thank you for the meal," Uma said, just as the front door could be heard opening, yielding to the sound of multiple bubbly voices, which Tiana seemingly took as her cue to hastily duck out of the kitchen the back way. (As a rule, the Avoxes seemed to avoid Capitol people.)

Harry sighed and mumbled a couple of unintelligible swears (He really had a way with words; even his swears could have been song lyrics.) as the voices grew closer and louder and then Fairy was entering the kitchen, followed by a colorful assortment of Capitol beauticians- roughly ten of them.

"Are you three still at the table?" she demanded, and Gil found himself looking down at the table as if it might have turned invisible, seeing as that was a pretty weird question to ask when she _saw_ them sitting at the table. "Get up! You still need to be washed, waxed, dressed, made up, styled-"

"If we're getting dressed anyway, why do we have to get waxed?" Gil asked. He'd asked prep teams this question before, though, and it had never worked.

"We're not getting waxed," Uma said flatly. "Anyone who rips hair off me is getting hair ripped off them."

One of the stylist ladies swooned at the pronouncement, which was surely not the desired effect and resulted in Harry visibly zeroing in on the offender and shooting her a warning look. Weirdly, watching Harry's protective behavior come out when someone expressed interest in Uma (and seeing the slight smile that Uma wore when it did) caused a sort of pleasurable tingle in Gil's skin. Literally, a physical sensation.

"We don't have to wax, then," a heavy male stylist volunteered. "We have a cream that will make the hair come off painlessly."

"Wait, that was an option the whole time?" Gil demanded.

"Well, do whatever needs doing. Let's go to the room," Fairy said. "Everyone, to the room; we've got to get started."

They did get started.

Gil was surprised by how much more entertaining prep became when there were people going through it with him. He had, of course, discovered long ago that it was interesting to listen to the sorts of things prep teams talked about: parties and color palettes and "mortifying faux pas", whatever those were. But listening to Harry and Uma interact with the prep teams, with their casual if snarky replies, added a whole new dimension of enjoyment.

"Oh, somehow I forgot about the tattoo on your chest," a stylist tutted, taking in Harry's form as Gil's shirt was removed from it. "Thank goodness it doesn't clash with the color scheme."

"What's our color scheme?" Uma asked.

"Teal and black, mostly, with some accents of red as a fun callback to the Games."

"That _is_ fun," Harry said airily.

"Just wait; you haven't even seen it yet. The soles of your shoes will be a striking crimson, and that's not all. Notice that the netting of your shirt- Yes, you can put that on now -is black, up _here_ , but gradually turns redder until the bottom threads are deep scarlet. That's meant to evoke the way blood of your victims pooled around you by the end; it's more subtle than some of your past ensembles, but it will look stunning under the stage lights, mark my words."

"Mark them where?" Harry pulled his see-through shirt on, shook out his shoulders, and raised his chin. Gil could _see_ the resolve setting in that, if he wasn't going to be allowed to _cover up_ , Harry certainly wasn't going to _hide_. He was so beautiful; everything was so unfair.

"Darling, I would kill for lips like yours," the pudgy stylist who had introduced painless waxing drawled at Uma while painting a sheen of silver glitter over the fresh coat of teal on her lips.

"I think President Snow already has," a blond stylist (who was working at Harry's hair) with incredibly high energy quipped, startling even Uma into laughing.

"Charlotte!" Fairy spluttered, casting her gaze about as if terrified that Snow would emerge from the walls themselves.

"Oh, come on," the woman, apparently named Charlotte, whined, seeming naively unaware that she had said anything radical. "Just a bit of fun! The president's lips are huge; everyone knows he's had work done. I haven't spoken _ill_ -"

"Well, that's enough of that," Fairy cut her off sharply. "And Tantor, I think she has enough glitter on her lips; get some in her hair."

"Does the coordinator usually work this closely with the prep team?" Gil asked, seeing as, in his experience, they did not.

"I'm keeping us on schedule," Fairy huffed. "Anyway, I started out in prep; I have quite a bit of expertise-"

"It's a shame they're changing your colors to match theirs," one of Gil's stylists griped. "The yellows and browns looked so pretty on you."

"Oh, I like a man dressed in dark colors," another disagreed, petting Gil's cheek for what he could only assume were non-cosmetic reasons, and Harry looked over so fast that Charlotte chided him to keep still, and Uma eyed the coquettish beautician unamusedly in the mirror, not looking away even after the woman's lingering hand was removed from Gil's face.

Consciously, Gil thought that he should probably try to diffuse the situation he could already see brewing from Uma's and Harry's reactions, but something in him liked the idea of them asserting that he was theirs too much to intervene. They were smart; they wouldn't get themselves into trouble.

"Clodia." Uma addressed the stylist by name (How was she so _good_ at picking people's names out of overlapping conversations and then remembering them?). "I'm curious: What do you use to apply foundation?"

"A sponge," Clodia answered, straightforwardly, in her singsong Capitol accent.

"And what do you use to apply blush?" Uma asked, her eyes widening a little as if she truly was just feeding an innocent curiosity.

"A brush," the stylist replied, and Gil started to pity her, because she truly did not seem to realize that nothing good was coming, and to that much he could relate.

"Then why was your bare hand caressing our Gil's face? Was that a new technique?"

Clodia's hand, which had resumed sponge-dabbing away some blemish or another on Gil's forehead, stilled now. Then she let out that haughty Capitol laugh that, in Gil's experience, normally accompanied the words _Oh, Gilbert, you're simply too much!_. He had never heard someone laugh at _Uma_ this way before: as though she were simple-minded or silly. It somehow managed to incense him as much as Snow's malicious chuckles had. Uma was not someone for the world to laugh at any more than Harry was someone for the world to stare at.

The sound of the laugh made Uma's eyebrows rise, and a smile spread on her face. It was a distinctly unfriendly smile, but still Gil was metaphorically kicked in the stomach by how beautiful she was. (Was this going to keep happening forever? Surely one day he would be used to them.)

Harry mimicked Clodia's laugh, in a higher register.

"Can we please stay on task?" Fairy said with a placating smile.

"We're establishing boundaries," Uma said. "It's what professional people do."

"And even _un_ professional people like myself sometimes give _one_ warning," Harry said lightly. "Exactly one. No more, no less."

"Anyone touches Gil, they better have a specific and justifiable reason. Understood?" The stylists nodded, some straightaway, others only after Uma had caught their eye expectantly. "Great."

Well, Gil felt very defended, and also kind of tingly again.

"You're all just as enamored in person as you are on TV," Charlotte giggled. "It's true love."

"As opposed to fake love?" Uma asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Charlotte sighed, stepping back from Harry to examine his now-roguishly-tousled hair. "Sometimes I think some of these victors just pretend things, for the audience."

"Charlotte, please stop being ridiculous," Fairy said.

Charlotte only shrugged, still circling Harry to gage the effect of the hairdo. "It's an interesting thought. I didn't have the idea first; a friend of mine used to say all kinds of interesting things, but she moved away. I think she's waitressing or something now." Reaching over, Charlotte flicked at a single lock of Harry's hair and then said, "You're done."

"Uma, Gil, do I look pretty?" Harry asked, giving them a spin.

"Oh, darling, you're divine," Uma said, imitating the Capitol accent to such a hilarious effect that most of the stylists were lost to chuckles. Gil caught Miss Fairy wearing a grudging smile before checking her watch for the zillionth time. Then he turned and saw that Harry was waiting for _his_ verdict on the look.

Well, Gil's opinion about the _outfit_ had been tainted, knowing that the stylists had based it on one of Harry's worst memories, but as far as beauty was concerned...well, it was Harry. And he did truly look stunning. Heinous though it was how they forcibly displayed his body, the clothes were perfectly calculated to accentuate some of his best physical features: the shape of the net shirt, the exact tightness and looseness of the pants. His eyeliner was thick and black, drawing attention to the contrast of his irises, and his hair looked as though he had just emerged victorious from a dramatic sword fight, with the lightest dusting of glitter to suggest that maybe the sword fight had happened underwater.

Gil took all of this in, but what came out of his mouth was, "Your butt looks awesome." 

Which would have been kind of embarrassing if it weren't so blatantly true.

"It does," Uma confirmed.

Harry twisted around to see in the mirror, and he seemed pleased by his findings.

"I'd agree with them, but I think Uma would set me on fire," Tantor chuckled.

"You're correct; watch your back," Uma said.

" _His_ back? How disappointing," one of Uma's other stylists drawled, flashing a smarmy smile in the rotund man's direction.

"Thin ice, Megara," Tantor said.

"Charlotte, if you're done with Mr. Hook, maybe you should help Tantor finish up Miss Triskelion's braids," Fairy said, and Charlotte obeyed.

There was _so_ much hair piled up on the vanity in front of Uma. As usual, some of it was blue and some was black, but there were also some locks of red being woven in, sparingly, but just enough to be noticeable. A shimmery red that went orange and yellow and red again when the light hit it in different ways. It wasn't until half an hour later, when Uma's braids were finished and she was standing up and spinning for his and Harry's evaluation (Her butt also looked awesome, although instead of well-fitted pants, she was wearing an extremely high-cut, teal and black dress, with fishnet stockings and heeled shoes in which she was still shorter than both of them.), that Gil realized that the bits of shimmery red in her braids were meant to evoke fire like the red in Harry's outfit was meant to evoke blood.

"Speaking of divine," Harry was saying to her, his words earnest and adoring, "you look like the dazzling mirage people hallucinate when they're dying of thirst."

"So you're saying you're thirsty?"

"You know me so well."

"There's glitter in your eyelashes," Gil observed, because for some reason that stood out to him. They had been much less subtle with the glitter on Uma. If Harry looked like his hair was covered in water droplets, Uma looked like her skin and braids were dusted with live embers. Her eyeliner wasn't as thick as Harry's, but it was winged more sharply. "You're both so beautiful."

"Oh, I wouldn't say we're the only ones." Uma extended a hand to him to draw him close. Her hands were covered in fishnets, too; they assumed the role of fingerless gloves. Gil gladly allowed himself to be pulled to her side, and he stood at the mirror with them.

That was when Gil took a more conscientious look at his own finished attire.

As they'd said, there was none of the yellow-brown aesthetic he was used to, except for his hair, which they couldn't exactly dye out-of-the-blue (or, in this case, out-of-the-blondish-light-brown?) without inciting fan riots. His sleeveless shirt was black, and his pants (not as fitted as Harry's, which he could only take to mean that his legs weren't as good) were black, and his boots were black with teal laces. It looked pretty standard. He looked closer.

He did not have very much by way of glitter on him, but he did shine; there were bits of metal detailing all over him, as a recurring theme that neither of the others seemed to have: silver at the collar of his shirt, silver in a bangle around his wrist, silver down the sides of his pant legs, silver on his shoes keeping the laces in place...Silver. Metal.

He caught on all at once, and he saw from the way that Uma's expression dropped that she knew he had caught on.

The thing that had killed Gil's last opponent in the games hadn't been any weapon of his; it had been a large, metal trap already rigged in the marsh. A trap that he had known about from experience, earlier that week- had actively chosen not to warn her about. He had had time to warn her, time after he had taken in her path of movement and seen her misstep before she made it, but he had withheld the knowledge, and the trap had torn through her so swiftly, cutting her throat wrist legs feet and then- the footage that always got played in throwbacks, except apparently for yesterday -he had started crying. Beautifully tragic, how the victor who kept all those adorable pets had cried over his victim. What a sweet boy. A delectable intersection of sweet boy and killer. Not sweet enough or even stupid enough to do anything other than play the game like anyone else would. Cowardly, really; it was the dark flip-side of how his inaction had spared the boy from 4. His silence about the trap had earned him his survival, the death of his last obstacle. And with this outfit, they had taken away his tiny bit of deniability. They had turned him into the murder weapon.

 

"Remember to keep your chins up," Fairy said as she skittered along in their wake. "And Harry, try to enunciate; in half of your interviews, no one has any idea what you're saying."

"So we're on a first-name basis now. That's exciting," Harry said.

They were backstage of Caesar's show, now. The stylists had dispersed after doing some minor touch-ups (as apparently the brief car ride here had been enough to warrant touch-ups) and were now mingling and sampling hour d'oeuvres.

Gil noticed Uma looking over her shoulder to check on him, as she had been doing periodically since their prep had ended. He could feel the returned warmth in his cheeks signifying that he at least wasn't as pale anymore; sometime during the ride, he had recovered from his realization of what his costume stood for. He had recovered from the shock, at least; now he was saddled with nerves over having everyone _else_ see it, and having to stand tall and be deliberate and victor-like about it, and having his first interview with Uma and Harry in general: letting their love be held under the strongest lenses in the country. It wasn't something they could talk about, in front of Fairy and the prep team; Uma couldn't very well console him, though he could tell that she wanted to from the way that she hadn't dropped his hand even now that there was sweat dampening her net-gloves.

He supposed he hadn't released hers either.

Huh. Perspective.

Harry, Gil could see from brief caught glances, was also sympathetic, but he did his part by deflecting any attempts at conversation so neither of _them_ would have to talk to anyone else until they were ready.

"Caesar will be calling you up in about forty seconds," a stage hand informed them.

Uma squeezed Gil's hand, then turned to face him. "I'm gonna sit on your lap when we go up there. Alright?"

"Okay," Gil said, and it was a good thing she _had_ made him say something, because his voice came out hoarse and weak. He cleared his throat. "Okay."

"They're gonna want us to kiss, but you don't owe them anything if you don't want to do it in front of them; Harry and I kiss plenty."

"It's fine. I can...I mean...I'm fine if they see."

"Don't be nervous; we won't let you drown," Uma said confidently. "You can coast if you need to; just don't clam up entirely. Try to anchor yourself in the moment."

Gil frowned. "Are...you doing that on purpose?"

"Doing what?" Uma asked with a straight face.

Gil was legitimately unsure as to whether or not she was serious, which was quite an effective distraction from everything else.

As was Harry draping an arm around his shoulder. "Ready?"

"Um...yes?" This was ridiculous; Gil had done interviews before. Theoretically, this should be his easiest one. This time, he had two other people with him. But the idea of being in love in _front_ of people...Somehow, it was uniquely terrifying. Normally, he got through interviews by playing a part, becoming a person who was _almost_ Gil Legume, but not quite. Gil Legume minus the nightmares and loneliness and guilt and all those other flavors the Capitol audience didn't want to taste. But with Harry and Uma, the idea of anything performative or false about his affection for them left an unpleasant taste in _his_ mouth. What if he went too genuine, or too stilted? Love was never something he'd had to factor into his persona; what if he...

"Twenty seconds; start making your way toward the stage."

"We've got you," Uma said as she drew him in the direction of the lights and sounds. "You're ours, remember? We've got you."

Gil nodded, and kept nodding. It was fine. They were together, so it was fine. He'd made it through a meeting with Snow this morning, because Uma and Harry had been there. He'd made it through the end of last year's Hunger Games, because Uma and Harry had been there. They could do anything.

Harry's hand slipped into Gil's free one. They were linked.

Then Caesar's voice said their names loudly, and Gil felt himself moving forward and heard the earsplitting applause, but he barely noticed. What he noticed was the way Harry's pupils shrank to pin-heads when the stage lights fell over them, and the way Uma's shoulder blades drew closer together as she straightened her back and raised her chin, and the way Harry's net shirt really did look as blood-soaked as the stylists had assured it would, and the way that, when illuminated, the contrast between the black and the dark teal of Uma's dress suddenly became distinct enough to make out the radial design around her heart, as though she had been stabbed and ink or oil was issuing from the wound (another cruel allusion, probably), and the way the trademark grin climbed its way lazily onto Harry's face, and the way Uma's expression, on the screens, looked so proud, as if to say, _These are my boys. They are amazing and not for you; they're for me_.

Then she turned around, placed both hands on him, and sat him down on the interview couch. Her back was to the audience, which Gil knew was a performance no-no, and seeing the little wicked smile she wore during that brief moment before he sank to the plush sofa- the brief moment in which his shadow was across her face and she winked at him -rendered him breathless.

Then he was sitting, and Harry was sitting- to his right; closer to Caesar -and she turned back around with her back to him again and plopped onto his lap, earning a ramp-up in audience screams. Her arm hooked around the back of his neck for support, and his arms automatically went around her waist to make sure she didn't fall, and her legs swung up and landed across Harry's lap, and one of Harry's arms was behind Gil (holding at Gil's opposite hip), the other settling on the stretch of skin above Uma's knee, claiming the space that had been left exposed to unworthy eyes.

Caesar was playing up the adorableness for all it was worth, which gave Gil time to relax. The worst of the anxiety had lifted, and he found he was content to just feel the warmth of Harry and Uma, to fix his eyes on the side of Uma's face for a while, or Harry's jaw, or the place where Harry's hand met Uma's leg over her fishnet stockings. When he smiled, it wasn't for the cameras, although he was sure that the cameras saw.

"Wow," Caesar said as the applause finally faded to a manageable level. _"Wow._ Excellent! You three look excellent!"

"You look dapper, yourself, Caesar," Harry said.

"The wig really brings out your eyes," Uma agreed.

Gil managed to tear his eyes away from Harry and Uma; there was a difference between coasting and just being deadweight, and both of them had already spoken. Then a laugh fell out of him without his permission, because he now knew that Uma had been employing sarcasm; Caesar had on a bright red wig, and it could not have brought out his eyes _less_.

The audience, which had kept up a low chuckle after Uma's teasing comment, now erupted into laughter at _Gil's_ surprised laugh. Uma turned her head slightly so that Gil could see her encouraging grin.

"I'm getting the sense you disagree," Caesar said with companionable amusement. "Well, we all make bold fashion choices from time to time." (The audience hooted reassurances at Caesar, who smiled as though consoled.)

"Gil was a little nervous, because he never wears black," Uma said, one of her hands going to interlock fingers with Gil's (which were still at her waist, making sure she didn't fall). "But _we_ told him he looks like an armored knight. Don't you agree?" Again, the audience was quick and loud and generous with reassurances, and Gil had to blink a little faster to counter the stinging in his eyes at what Uma had just accomplished. She had taken the metal of his outfit, the hearkening to his kill-by-inaction in the Games, and she had framed it as armor. And she had made sure, as early on in the interview as she could, that everyone else would see it that way, too.

Gil wondered what forces had made it possible for him to be sitting here with someone who cared this much about protecting him.

He kissed her shoulder, softly, because he had to do _something_ , and kissing her face felt both too audacious to properly convey how humbled he felt and too public, like the kiss would be stolen from them by the leering eyes of the nation as soon as they broke contact (not that the shoulder-kiss didn't still prompt immediate screams). Uma hummed, and Gil's eyes went to one of the screens to see that her eyes had fallen shut and her lips were curved contentedly. He also saw, on the screen, that Harry was looking at him, so he turned his head in time for Harry to plant a kiss on his neck. His tongue was warm, hot even, and rather than hum like Uma, Gil made a high-pitched noise that was drowned out by the roar of the masses.

Harry withdrew with an almost self-deprecating smirk and a casual shrug, and Gil could clearly read on his face a sentiment along the lines of, _Well, I wasn't going to be left out, was I?_. Gil was fairly certain his expression was clear in conveying that he was _more_ than happy that Harry hadn't left himself out.

It took an entire minute for the crowd to return from the highs of their bizarre euphoria at watching people kiss each other.

Caesar, by that time, looked as though all of the audience's energy had been fed directly to him via electrical cable and he was barely keeping it under control. After a few more "wow"s and "excellent"s, he finally cleared his throat. "Now then! Let's cut right to the chase. The three of you surprised us last summer, when you kissed before boarding your trains. For months, everyone has been curious: How long has this been going on?"

"You want a timeline, Caesar?" Harry said.

"We've crossed paths a lot, after Gil won his Games," Uma said loftily. "The beginning of last year's Games was when we really came together, though."

"It came as a shock to a lot of us, myself included," Caesar said. "Uma and Harry, you two always seemed so exclusive."

"We're still exclusive," Uma said. "But Gil is _in_ cluded."

Would it be too soon to kiss her again? Probably.

"Then it's thanks to President Snow that you three can all truly explore your love." Something in Gil's stomach soured at Caesar's reminder. As Uma had said yesterday, this statement had probably been scripted. As _Harry_ had said yesterday, Caesar had always been a tool for Snow's agenda. Still, Gil couldn't help kind of liking Caesar. His amicable interviewing demeanor had won lots of tributes sponsors. Gil had grown up watching Caesar, just like everybody else had; before he'd grown old enough to realize that nice and good weren't always the same thing, Gil had identified Caesar Flickerman as the only good part of the Hunger Games. It was unsettling, now, to see how he actively worked to forward Snow's narrative. "Speaking of..." Caesar leaned forward, his eyes glittering. "How did you three enjoy your morning?"

(The audience trilled at his suggestive question before falling abruptly and expectantly silent.)

Harry cackled, and Gil belatedly wondered if he was pretending to be drunk- or at least slightly buzzed. Gil was fairly certain that Harry hadn't ingested anything since lunch, but the mannerisms he had adopted since stepping onstage, the slightly heightened reactiveness and vaguely scattered focus, suggested otherwise. But then, this was how he often acted in interviews. Maybe he needed the degree of separation between the Harry Hook who was him and the Harry Hook who the entire room collectively lusted after.

"Caesar," Uma chided, "don't you go asking such personal questions, or I'm afraid I'll have to ask _you_ your age."

Caesar's hand flew to his heart (Age and weight were two things that Capitol people had weird reactions to, Gil had learned.), and he exaggeratedly gasped, "You wouldn't!"

"You know she would," Harry boasted. "She could do worse than that, mate; she could _guess_ your age."

"Oh dear, you win; I shan't ask again!"

The audience's laughter, this time, was somewhat subdued; they were either still hoping for an answer to the question or disappointed to realize they wouldn't receive one.

Caesar helped them out by changing the subject: "And now this...'Sisyphus's Reward' concept. Now, that intrigues me. Intrigues all of us." (Brief pause to hear the audience's murmur of assent.) "I understand you three spoke to President Snow about it earlier today?"

"That's right," Uma said.

"He's a splendid host," Harry drawled brightly.

"He has cool paperweights," Gil contributed, because it was occurring to him that he really wasn't helping much, conversation-wise.

While the audience was laughing, Harry clasped his shoulder. Gil spared one of the arms that was holding Uma to instead wrap around Harry. Gosh, his torso was so cold, in his non-shirt; Gil held him tighter.

"Well then, can you expound upon the new changes?" Caesar asked eagerly. "The official statement is that we will experience 'increased availability' of our victors. That sounds exciting."

"We can't give too much away _yet_ , Caesar," Uma said, managing to turn her sharp tone into a playful sternness. "We'll just have to keep you in suspense."

"You're killing us," Caesar groaned. "At least tell us what it all means for _you_. Can we still expect Harry to write songs for us?"

"If you're good," Harry said simply, which almost started another round of screaming, but he then put his finger to his lips and the crowd obediently silenced all at once. Whoa.

"We keep our hobbies," Uma explained. "Gil even has a cat."

Gil perked up. "His name is Gray."

"Like your brother," Caesar observed.

"Yeah," Gil said, pleasantly surprised. "Wow, you remembered."

By the crowd's reaction, apparently he was being adorable. He wondered if that was at odds with Snow's "victors aren't cute" rule. Or _was_ that actually a rule? He supposed everything Snow said was a rule, at least by intention. But did that mean that he was supposed to indulge Snow by somehow un-cute-ing himself (which he wasn't even confident was possible, because most of what other people considered cute was just him being overly enthusiastic or misreading situations), or defy Snow by continuing to be himself?

"So, Gil," Caesar said, seeming to have determined that Gil was ready to actually be interviewed now, "this must be quite a change for you especially. You have two new...What do you want to call them?"

"Uh, I just call them Harry and Uma?" Gil suggested, which led to more laughter. Yeah, the "cute" thing wasn't going away any time soon; he went through life in a constant state of confusion.

Harry giggled, burying his face in Gil's arm.

"I think he means, like, 'lovers', or 'partners', or whatever," Uma said.

"Oh." Gil blushed.

"...I like calling people by their names, though," she went on, possibly just to keep him from seeming foolish. "Instead of putting a person into a role, you wrap the role around the person." The audience sounded as though she had profoundly inspired them.

"'Wrap the role around the person'; I _love_ that. I love it. Very well," Caesar chortled. "You're in a relationship with Harry and Uma, then. That must have been very exciting for you."

"It still is," Gil said, honestly wondering why Caesar had phrased it as though the novelty might have somehow worn off. "Are you kidding? They're..." (If he were smarter, he could have used some grand description like Harry had: some "You're the vision people see when they're dying of thirst"-level praise. As it stood, though...) "They're _amazing_. I feel so...lucky." And _that_ was so true, despite being fairly simple, that he almost wished he hadn't said it in front of the entire country. He felt pulled-open, like his heart had been cut down the middle and the halves were being held apart for everyone to examine the inside. And what a silly thing to feel: lucky. After everything, and at a time like this, here he was saying to everyone that he felt lucky. And meaning it, too; he had never meant anything more than he meant this.

"We're all lucky," Harry said, breaking character just a little to be serious.

"That's why we're here," Uma added calmly. "Luck is supposed to be passed along."

Gil got chills, hearing her cryptic statement, but the audience ate it up.

"So what can we expect from you three in the near future?" Caesar asked.

In this moment, Gil knew that he and Harry were explicitly and visibly waiting for Uma to give an answer.

"Some surprises," Uma said, her expression guileless and unreadable all at once. "It's gonna be a big change for everyone, but you guys are gonna have fun." As the audience roared in anticipation, Gil heard her words as a person sitting at their television in District 10- in any of the Districts, really -and he caught the warning. Surprises. A big change. And the Capitol citizens were going to have fun. "Ultimately, though, you guys are gonna have to trust us. You trust us, right?"

The audience chorused out "YES!", with some more innovative answers mixed in (Gil was pretty sure a shrill voice in the front shouted something like _"Uma, I want to have your babies!"_ , the logistics of which he fundamentally didn't understand.). Uma rewarded them all with a downright regal smile. She absolutely owned them.

"I don't think they trust us darling," Harry teased, just to provoke the crowd to increase their volume to a level Gil would have previously thought impossible.

Uma smirked, then raised a hand, and the crowd quieted. Then she stood, removing her weight from Gil's thighs (but leaving her hand in his). "Alright," she said, two fingers pointing from the audience enraptured in front of her and then at her own eyes. "All eyes on me; let me see 'em."

Every camera turned to obey. Every audience member craned their neck in the hopes of receiving praise.

"We will do our part as victors and as entertainers," Uma said. "We need you to do your part as an audience and be here for the ride. Are you here for the ride?"

They returned to their affirmative shouts, and this time the smile with which Uma rewarded them was huge and toothy and bright.

She seemed to let their adulation wash over her for a few seconds before she graciously gave Caesar his show back, returning to the sofa and submitting to more questions, and despite the ever-present smile on Caesar's face, it was clear that he knew that Uma had just exerted power in a very real and significant way.

 

Fairy did not ride back to the house with them after the interview, but she did walk them to their car. "That was good," she assured them as soon as they were out of the backstage room where the stylists got them out of their makeup and gaudy clothes and glitter. "Very poised. Gilbert, your stage presence was a bit lackluster, but it contrasted with Harry and Uma nicely."

"Um...Good," Gil hazarded.

"We're glad you liked it, Miss Fairy," Uma said flatly.

"You made me laugh a few times," Fairy added. "It was really a very charismatic performance."

"Thank you," Harry gushed. "Your words of encouragement mean the world to us."

Fairy beamed. "I'm sure you'll be all anybody talks about for at least all of tomorrow."

"That is the hope, anyway." Uma knew her voice was deadening by the minute. She could barely keep her eyes open on the way to the car, especially once they were out in the night air. 

As much as she hated the facades and the lies and the privilege that ran rampant here, Uma found that she thrived in the interviews, so much so that leaving them felt like returning to land after a long time swimming; suddenly, she was aware of her own weight again. If she had to guess, she would say that it was because interviews were such a mental exercise- always gaging the audience's reaction to every word or implication, as well as imagining what the same words would mean to their _real_ audience, coding not too subtly but not too explicitly, performing but not getting caught up in the tide, not giving too much (It was horrifyingly easy to let them take too much.) -that at a point she detached from the corporeal plane.

But now she was back, with the echoes of the noise still in her ears and the ghost of the lights still in her eyes, and she was spent.

"Tomorrow will be a fairly busy day; you will be meeting with Adam Beast in the morning, but he'll be coming to you, and you won't need a prep team for that. Afterward, it's been arranged for..."

Uma forced herself to retain Fairy's words, seeing as they were rather important, but mostly she was hyperaware of the sway of Harry's gait and Gil's and the increasing proximity of the car that would be their escape.

She fell asleep with her head in Harry's lap as soon as they got in (with his hands sifting gently in her braids), and it felt like only seconds passed before she was being carried up the walkway to their house. She smacked the flat of her hand lightly against a muscular shoulder. "I can walk," she croaked out.

"You weren't saying that when we tried to wake you up twenty seconds ago," Harry teased from a few feet away.

"She's tired." Gil's voice vibrated against her, warm and sympathetic, as he set her down on her feet.

He must have been right; she must have been extremely tired, because she found herself feeling entirely inundated with emotion all of a sudden. Love for Harry and Gil, and horror over the situation they had all been put in, and fury that Snow couldn't let any bit of good pass unscathed, and fear...so much fear...Fear that they had done, were doing, would do, the wrong things, and that everyone would pay for it, or even if just Harry or Gil paid for it...so many mistakes she couldn't afford to make. And even fear of the choices she couldn't make: the reaping in a few months, the people left behind in 4 and 10. They were the ones in the most danger: the ones not protected by the attention and adoration of the cameras. Who here would mourn CJ or Harriet or any of Gil's brothers? Just the three of them.

"It's been such a long day," she whispered.

"Let's get you to bed," Harry said, having gone from teasing to soothing that fast, like only he could. "I'll bet you didn't sleep last night."

"I dozed a couple times."

"Uma," Gil groaned. "You've got to rest."

Sure. On a human level, sure. But their struggle was against Snow, and Snow had hundreds of people to work for him, to carry out his will. Snow could rest; Uma could not. Not always, at least. "There's only us," she said as Harry opened the door to the house. It was like Snow was working with a full set of chess pieces and they..."We're just three pawns."

"Gil's a knight, remember?" Harry said, ushering both of them into the house. "I'm sure you're a queen."

"Well then you'd better be a rook, because you sure ain't a bishop, love."

"'Rook' even rhymes with 'Hook'," Gil said cheerily.

Harry giggled as he closed the door behind them and followed them through the entryway.

It must have been some shared remnant of battle reflexes from the Games or something, because all three of them noticed Evie Grimhilde lurking in the shadowy corner before she saw fit to announce herself. The girl was still swathed in the same blue clothes- royal blue, instead of Uma's teal -as before, but it was impossible to tell more than that, shrouded in darkness as she was.

"Well hello," Uma said. "You didn't want to sit in a chair?"

Evie drew forward, and Uma was entirely positive that she was deliberately moving at an elegant pace and letting the dim light slowly wash over her for maximum effect. "None of this was supposed to happen," she said, her smoky voice quiet and cool with anger. "I did everything right: Get pretty; Get sponsors; Win. I've been designing Snow's suits for years."

"Did he tell you anything?" Uma asked, scanning for anything in Evie's posture or expression that would indicate if her anger was directed at them or Snow. District 1's were always either puddle-shallow or impossible to read; Evie was the latter.

"He told me to give you this," Evie said dryly, tossing an object at them.

Harry caught the object and held it so they could all examine it. It was just slightly bigger than his palm: a chunk of glass, with smooth, asymmetrical edges. It probably counted as art, for rich people.

"He said 'Since Gil liked it so much'." Evie rolled her eyes.

"Nice of him," Uma said, crossing her arms and making a mental note to bury the paperweight in the backyard at their earliest convenience.

Evie exhaled hard. "I'm not here to mince words, and I'm not here to say what we all know is happening. I'm _tired_ of being coy. If I thought we were just going to say meaningless things, I'd have stayed in the guest room."

"Then by all means." Uma gestured with her hand. "We're listening."

Evie lifted her face to catch the light more directly (Every move a pose.), and out of a fold in her skirt, she eased a silver knife into view. One of the ones from the kitchen. She took long strides towards the three of them, and Gil reached protectively for Uma, and Harry moved to stand in front of her, but Uma had a hand for each and gestured both of them back, keeping calm eye contact with Evie. 

The other girl halted a couple of feet away from them and pointed the knife at Uma, a very serious look in her eyes.

"I am already being used by the Capitol," Evie said clearly. "I will not be used by you as well. I am not a tool, or a pawn, or a doll. So whatever plots you three are hatching to take advantage of this new job- and don't say you aren't, because I'm not stupid -you'd better tell me about anything that involves me. No secrets, no fun surprises. I don't care who you think you're helping; you _tell_ me." She drew herself up, somehow higher, and her expression somehow went even colder. "If you do not, and if I find out you haven't, I will kill two of you and leave one alive. That's a promise."

Harry growled. Gil made another attempt to reach for Uma protectively, which Uma absentmindedly rebuffed whilst regarding Evie.

No, Evie wasn't stupid, but she wasn't being very smart, announcing aloud in this definitely-bugged room that she _demanded_ to be kept abreast of any schemes.

Uma respected Evie probably more than she respected any of the other District 1's; she was a Career through and through, even a Legacy (with her victor mom), and as rich as a person could be outside the Capitol, but Evie did not cheer over her kills or put down other victors. Evie did not treat the Games as her glory days; she had gone into the Games giggly and flirtatious and alluring and emerged from them sultry and darkly mysterious. She designed clothes and minded her own business. Not enviable, but better than the ones who pumped their fists in the air as they rewatched their old murder footage. That being said, Uma did not like Evie very much. She could pinpoint exactly the moment when she had started to dislike Evie; it had been during the Games, when Evie had abandoned the little girl from District 8 who she was allied with. It was understandable _why_ ; the Games had been nearing an end, and separating meant it probably wouldn't come down to just the two of them. Had she told the girl that she was ready to part ways before just leaving her alone in the middle of the night, Uma wouldn't have been disappointed with her, but instead the child had awoken to find herself alone in the wilderness, with only her canteen left behind. Confused and calling for Evie even though it was dangerous to make noise. And Uma knew it was a mixture of the fact that Uma respected Evie enough to feel disappointed in her and her own personal issues with sudden abandonment that colored her impression of Evie in the negative- as it wasn't like she of all people didn't know the Games made people do worse things than skipping out on a twelve year old -, and she knew that she would ignore the feeling for the sake of being fair, but the feeling was there regardless.

At any rate, she had no intention of treating Evie like a pawn, but telling her everything was another matter. That she would have to think on.

"Noted," was what Uma eventually said. "But either way, if you even _try_ to hurt Harry or Gil-"

"I'm sure you'll set me on fire."

"Definitely don't interrupt me. What I'll do to you if you hurt them will not be predictable or on-brand. And _that_ is a promise."

Evie smiled, swiftly stowing her knife back away. "So we understand each other. I'll see you in the morning."

Uma tilted her head as Evie retired from the room. "Sleep tight. Stay frosty, princess."

Evie disappeared into the hallway with the guest rooms and the Avoxes' rooms. (Uma wondered who had shown her to her room; it was hard to find that hallway without knowing it was there. _They_ had missed it, on their first tour through the house, because the door had no knob and looked like wall panels.)

They stood there for a few seconds, once she was gone.

"So we're letting her keep the knife?" Harry broke the silence.

"May as well. It's that or some other thing," Uma said. "Knives aren't the only way to kill someone. May as well let her feel...comfortable."

"She didn't _seem_ comfortable," Gil opined.

Uma was about to concede that he was right, but a yawn escaped her instead.

"To bed," Harry instructed, pointing his finger. "Off you go. Come on."

"Don't boss me around, rook," Uma snarked, whilst complying. It was possible that she somehow blacked out between the entryway and the bedroom, because she was descending on their huge, soft bed in what felt like less than a second. _I can't be losing time like this,_ she thought as she drifted off. _I've gotta pay better attention._

 

Gil watched Harry tuck the blankets lovingly around Uma, who was out like a light. She hadn't changed into pajamas; Gil suspected it was a good thing the stylists had changed them into more casual clothes immediately after the interview, because otherwise Uma probably would have fallen asleep in her makeup and dress. Harry had taken her shoes off but otherwise just tucked her in as she was.

"Are you going to bed, too?" Gil asked.

"Not just yet," Harry sighed. He ran a hand through his hair as he straightened up. "Think I'll have some tea. Would you care to join me, or will you be turning in?" He looked so tired. Even the shirt they'd _changed_ him into was see-through; he was probably still cold.

"I love tea," Gil said, thinking of quiet afternoons with Mulan.

A slow smile grew on Harry's face, and he embraced him. He _was_ cold. "I saw a checkerboard in the sitting room. Let's play checkers."

Gil decided that he wasn't going to bring up the meeting with the Beast tomorrow, or Evie Grimhilde, or even the interview. They had all been wrung out by today, and tomorrow was on the other side of right now. And right now they needed peace. And Uma needed sleep. And Harry needed warmth.

And Gil needed to learn how to play checkers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feast your eyes; the rooster joke is the closest I come to cursing.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading, and please comment!


	5. Chapter 5

"King me," Harry said triumphantly, sitting back with his arms crossed behind his head.

Gil looked from Harry to the little piece he had advanced to Gil's side of the board and back again. "So is the game over?"

"No. Now you-...I'll show you." Harry leaned forward again and flipped a piece on top of the 'king' one; Gil just ended up staring at his eyelashes, and he was caught in the act just a second later when Harry suddenly looked up at him and flashed a slightly more tired version of his normal smug grin. Harry's whole energy was different, tonight; he was quieter, and less reacting than considering. He had changed into one of Gil's shirts again and a pair of comfy pajama pants; his feet were bare, and every now and then he swung them off of the floor and up on the seat with him. (Apparently he had a complicated relationship with sitting in chairs correctly.) There were shadows under his eyes; Gil recalled that he had woken screaming from a nightmare just this morning.

"I don't...normally see you drink tea," Gil probed gently. He remembered the first time he officially met Harry, when the latter was having two different flasks emptied on his face. Possibly the exact opposite of sipping tea calmly over a checker board.

Harry's smile flickered a little. "Well, it's that kind of night."

Gil nodded, allowing the subject to pass, and Harry talked him through the rest of the game. Of course, Harry won, although it was pretty obvious that he dragged it out for longer than he needed to; Gil suspected that Harry had him beat with _one_ piece kinged, but he was up to four kings (and had helped Gil to get _one_ ) by the time the game ended. They played a second, quicker round, with less mercy being shown on Harry's part. It was a fun game still. Simple enough that he could play without being coached, and he didn't mind losing, especially to Harry.

Gray jumped up onto the table while they were putting away the board.

"Not up here, buddy," Gil chastened, pulling the cat down onto his lap instead and scratching indulgently between his ears while Harry stared as warily as though he thought Gray might be venomous and was ready to fling him off of Gil should the need arise. Well, it took time to build trust.

"Have you..." Harry paused, tilted his head, still with his eyes on Gray, but less focused now. "...spoken to The Beast before?"

"A couple times," Gil answered, and Harry's lips tightened as though he did not like the thought of Adam Beast talking to Gil. "Not for very long." The Beast liked to occasionally drop in on victor parties. He seemed to think he was friends with them, though even the victors from 1 and 2 didn't particularly like him. But Gil had found that keeping his head down kept The Beast from starting conversations, most of the time. And anyway, if it was victors from 10 he wanted, Mulan was so much more interesting. "How about you?"

Harry made a scornful noise. "There are terminal illnesses I hate less than I hate that dobber. He's crossed crowded rooms to chat at Uma and me. And he always says the same old bosh about how we haven't spoken in a while, how much Uma's win shocked him- loves bringing that up, like she did it just to surprise him -how it gave him chills, when I 'came undone' or 'unravelled' or whatever it was, in my Games- likes to throw the word 'madness' around; old man thinks he's some sort of artist -and I'll bet my teeth he brings his son tomorrow, or at least tries to; he always mentions how he wishes his son could have come along to see us, but you know the security at victor parties." Harry paused for a second to drink his tea. "Son's got to be a piece of work. It's like I always say, anyone who wants to meet _'Harry Hook'_ is either after bone or bloodshed, if you catch my meaning."

It actually took Gil a second to "catch his meaning". "You _always_ say that?"

Harry giggled, allowing his head to fall wearily back and finally removing his gaze from the cat. "Maybe not always."

Gil mulled the statement itself over. He knew that Harry was probably joking, but he was also a little worried that Capitol consumption could have come to shape how Harry saw himself. Because that _was_ more or less how they reduced him: exploitable beauty and enjoyable violence. " _I'm_ not just after bone or bloodshed," Gil said.

Harry's expression softened, although a bit of the laugh lingered on his face, like a last line of defense. He reached out and took one of Gil's hands between both of his own. His palms and fingers were rough, from working with rope, probably. "I know, Gilly," he said, with a transparent edge of mock-exasperation.

They brought their cups to the sink together, even though it was a one-person task. Harry washed them and handed them to Gil, who dried them and put them away. He stared into the dark of the cabinet, at the rows of cups and bowls. More dishes than three people needed; they had taken it for the typical Capitol opulence, at first, but now that he knew that they would have guests here, like Evie...

How many victors would be here at once?

How many people could Uma protect at once?

He wondered how much reading he would have to do to catch up with Uma's intelligence, to make himself the slightest bit of an asset to her. And what would he even read? How could her sort of savvy be learned? Inspiring crowds, to the point of what seemed like loyalty, who would otherwise have celebrated her death wasn't something she had likely learned from a book. It also wasn't something she seemed to need his help with. So what was?

"Do you think she'll ever let us help her?" Gil asked quietly. Of course he didn't have to explain who he was talking about, although maybe the question itself was a bit odd.

Harry seemed to turn the question over in his head a few times. "She..." He made a pensive clicking sound with his tongue. "She does, a bit. More than a bit, on a good day. She's still learning that she can share burdens." He gave Gil's shoulder a squeeze. "Like you're still learning that not taking away all of someone's suffering isn't the same as not loving them."

Gil smiled grudgingly. "And what are _you_ learning?"

"Me? Learn?" Harry grinned. "Perish the thought." He pushed off the counter and almost tripped over Gray, but managed at the last second to hop over him.

"Maybe you can learn that you don't always have to laugh when you're sad," Gil suggested sheepishly.

Harry flicked a few drops of dishwater Gil's way without answering. "Let's turn in, yeah?"

They padded down the hallway, conscious of every creak. It would be nice to be in bed, after everything. It would be especially nice for all three of them to sleep _together_ , for the first time in a while. (Or at least the first time he'd be _falling_ asleep with both of them in a while.)

Suddenly, Harry stopped walking. "Huh," he mused quietly.

"What?" Gil asked, and Harry's hand landed absentmindedly on his shoulder.

"Just thinkin' about what Uma said in the interview. About how the job of the audience is to be along for the ride." Harry's eyes kept staring off at nothing, and twitching a little as something clearly came together in his brain. "You go on to bed," he finally said to Gil, his hand slipping down his arm and then off him entirely. "I've got an idea."

"What? Harry, you need rest, too," Gil protested at Harry's departing form.

"Can't rest. I've got an idea. Got to write it while it's fresh. You get to bed, though." Harry ducked into the music room and closed the door.

Gil sighed, but eventually relented and turned into the bedroom. He slipped into bed as weightlessly as he could, next to Uma, who had shaken some of the blankets off of herself but was still deeply asleep. It warmed him to see her so at ease, so comfortable, with no tension in her shoulders or furrow to her eyebrows. Able to relax, even for a little while. She was drooling a little on one of her pillows. Gil gently eased her mouth closed with his thumb under her chin, only for her hand to suddenly fly up and wrap tightly around his wrist, her eyes snapping open in a sharp, uncomprehending glare as she seemingly tried to force her still-only-half-awake self to see through the darkness.

"Sorry, sorry," Gil stammered. "You were drooling on the pillow, I was just closing-"

"Gil," she interrupted groggily, her grip loosening and her eyes easing shut again. "Your callouses are different from Harry's." And then, with a soft but relieved sigh, she went straight back to sleep.

Maybe not completely relaxed, then.

Gil retucked the blankets around her, feeling especially protective now. He settled beside her, listening to the ebb and flow of her breath.

From elsewhere in the house, he could faintly hear the strains of Harry's music- not whole melodies at a time, but isolated clusters of notes every now and then, quiet like whispered secrets. Or like a very fragmented lullaby.

 

The sensation of his shoulder being vigorously shaken was what woke Gil.

"Huh?" he groaned.

Uma was sitting up between him and the sleeping form of Harry, whom she was also shaking awake. She wasn't yet dressed for the day, but she was quite alert, her braids tied up in a bundle and out of the way.

"What is it?" Harry asked, barely intelligible as his face was half-squished by his pillow and he had opened his mouth the minimal amount required to allow sound out.

In answer, Uma held up their pad of paper. On the top page, she had written, _'You two need to learn how to talk to/understand the Avoxes'_.

"Right now?" Harry complained. "It's sailor hours all over again."

"We only have so much time to ourselves," Uma said, shrugging off the shirt she'd slept in and putting on a fresh one, then flipping to the next page, on which she had already written, _'The sooner we start, the more you can learn'_.

"How long have you been awake?" Gil asked.

"Just an hour or two. I waited til sunrise to wake you guys up." She flipped the page, and on it was a list of twenty words and phrases, for which she proceeded to teach them the gestures.

They learned 'Thank you' first, which was something they could say aloud under _most_ circumstances, but they quickly segued into things like 'Help me' and 'It's not safe' and 'Be careful', with a few basic words like 'water' and 'fire' and 'food' peppered in. And 'snow'. Of course. Gil resolved to practice where possible; he had just been ruminating, last night, about how he didn't know how to help Uma, and now she was giving him a tool to potentially do so...somehow. He didn't know exactly _how_ it might help, but he would learn it regardless.

It was half an hour later and they had just finished learning the sign for 'I can't help you' when Uma turned the page to reveal the message _'Don't do it in front of Evie'_. They nodded, at that. Evie was not really an enemy, but she was not trusted either.

"How long til Beast gets here?" Harry asked, neatly changing the subject.

"A little over an hour, should be." Uma tore the used pages from their pad and crumpled them in her hand, rising as she did so. "I'm gonna go see how Tiana's coming along with breakfast." (...and burn the paper on the stove, Gil assumed.)

"I'll wash up," Harry said, climbing out of bed and stretching himself out.

"Did you finish the thing you were working on last night?" Gil asked.

"What thing?" Uma asked, stopping on the threshold.

"Just a song," Harry said, with a grin spreading on his face that belied the claim that it was "just" anything. "You'll hear it later."

"Is it already finished?"

"Patience, love," Harry sang, and with that he ambled into the bathroom and closed the door.

"I'm gonna kill him," Uma said fondly. Then she winked at Gil and left for the kitchen.

The shower turned on, in the bathroom. Gil lingered in the room for a moment longer before he stood and followed Uma. She, being a person who walked with purpose, had already cleared the hallway and was probably in the kitchen by now. Gil meandered a bit, glancing into the study and then the sitting room to see if he could casually gather what Uma had been up to before waking them up. There were displaced books in the study, but there had been displaced books already, and he hadn't exactly memorized which books Uma had moved and where, so there wasn't much to glean from that.

Ella was tidying another pile of books in the sitting room, ordering them into a neat stack on the table. She stilled somewhat warily when she saw Gil lingering in the doorway. Gil hesitated a moment before greeting her with a newly-learned nonverbal sign. Ella stared for a second longer before her expression softened and she returned the gesture. Encouraged, Gil signed to ask her how she was doing, only for her to respond with a gesture he didn't yet understand. Gil's lost expression must have done a good job communicating his confusion; Ella gave him a knowing smile, gestured at the pile of books, and then returned to the task of organizing them.

Likewise, Gil resumed walking.

The sounds of breakfast in progress emanated from the kitchen. As Gil crossed the front room, he noticed that Evie was there, sitting on the floor in the same corner she had been standing in last night before she threatened them (Perhaps she was claiming that corner as her own.) and wearing a blue dress with red flowers embroidered down the skirt and a red, asymmetrical shawl over the top (Gil wondered if she owned anything casual, and also how early she had to have woken up to be this camera-ready at this time of morning). She was stroking Gray the cat with a slight smile on her face. "You're pretty, aren't you?" she was saying quietly. "You're so soft, pretty little baby-cat. Yes, you are." Gray seemed to quite enjoy the attention for the first several seconds, then started swatting at her hands with his paws. This seemed to amuse Evie more; her smile widened, her white teeth stark against her red lips.

So she was nice to animals! That was a point in her favor, at least.

Gil decided to leave them there. Somehow, despite knowing for a fact that she had a knife and having heard her coldly state that she was willing to murder two of them, he felt fairly sure that it was safe to leave Gray with Evie. (He wasn't as sure that it was safe to leave Evie with Gray, who he supposed could still potentially be a mutt, but, again, she had threatened to murder them last night; it seemed she could take care of herself.)

In the kitchen, Uma was stirring a pot for Tiana, who was beside her scrambling so many eggs that Gil's mouth watered, while the crispy remains of their note paper was reducing on one of the stove's other eyes.

"Anything I can help with?" he asked, startling Tiana a little.

"We're almost done," Uma answered. "You can set the table and then make sure Harry's shower ends before noon."

Gil suddenly felt Gray brush against the backs of his ankles, and that was his only warning before Evie could be heard behind him, saying, "I heard Adam Beast will be here today."

Uma turned her back on the grits and crossed her arms, her chin raised a little as she eyed Evie. "You heard right. What about it?"

"I plan to be there when you talk to him," Evie said simply.

(Gil edged away to set the table.)

"Well, thanks for the head's up." Uma could feel the temper of her childhood trying to rear its head again, tempting her to shout at Evie to go _do_ something besides just coolly staring at her, but she pushed it down. Evie was not the problem. Not inherently. The problem was too many stressors and not enough outlets, other than daydreams about introducing Snow to the nearest gallows. And there was no longer a home in District 4 to escape to, to pace and rant around; only this mansion, full of listening ears and reminders of the stakes. Uma could only see her anger increasing as she remained pent up for longer. That was bound to be a liability. "You gonna eat something?"

Evie sauntered up to the stove and peeked at the food being prepared. "What is that?"

"Grits, eggs, various kinds of fried pig." Uma suddenly remembered the types of foods she'd been served on her Victory Tour, in District 1 specifically: gelatins, fruit spreads on crackers, tiny cubes of ham speared on toothpicks along with tiny cubes of cheese, a hundred different types of salads. Like combining the odd stylism of Capitol food, with the scarcity of the other Districts' food, with something utterly, nonsensically unique to District 1. Certainly nothing hearty or particularly filling. She wasn't surprised, then, when Evie replied:

"I'll just see if there's an apple in the fridge." Then flitted off to do just that, as if an errant breeze had blown her away.

"More for us," Uma said to Tiana.

Tiana's lips curved up slightly, and she covertly signed, _You mean more for **you** ; if I eat with you victors, they'll cut more than just my tongue._ She had a very no-nonsense way of signing, a straightforward and dignified way that forbade pity, but that didn't mean Uma couldn't feel furious with the Capitol on her behalf.

In all honesty, Uma knew very little about Tiana; all she had gathered, from conversation, was that she and Ella were some of the few Avoxes who came from the Capitol originally, and she couldn't help thinking that Snow had had some reason for making it this way, for assigning two Capitol Avoxes to their house instead of any of the much more common District ones. On a simplistic level, it was possible that he just thought that Avoxes who came from the Districts would be too easy for her to befriend, but she wasn't sure that was it. She wondered what Tiana's and Ella's "crimes" could have been, to have earned them this fate despite the comparative protection of being Capitol citizens.

"The table's set," Gil said, and Uma turned and saw that he was hesitating in the doorway, as if reluctant to leave the room. He glanced at Evie, who was taking her time selecting an apple from the fridge, and then back at Uma. "Do...you still want me to go get Harry?"

Uma caught on; Gil was worried about leaving her with Evie. Because of Evie's words last night. Well, that was sweet of him. Uma thought about addressing the issue out loud but quickly decided against it. "Yeah, go ahead," was all she said to Gil, conveying with her expression that she would be fine.

Gil glanced at Evie once more, then relented and left the room. The cat followed him out, which Uma found worrying. If the cat was just a cat, then the fact that it followed Gil around was sweet; if not, then there was a non-zero chance that it was awaiting a kill order. That was another thing to hate about Snow; he had made sure that she was either the crazy person scared that a cat would _eat_ one of her loved ones, or the crazy person living with a mutt and not doing anything about it. He was intricate about his cruelty, surgical, so that every move he made promised either pain or fear of pain.

"Will you get out of the fridge?" Uma demanded, as Evie was _still_ selecting an apple. "They're not that different!"

"I have standards as to what I'm willing to put in my body," Evie said calmly.

"That's because you've never starved."

Evie didn't respond for a moment, and Uma assumed that she was offended, until, in a noticeably more sober tone of voice, she said, "Touche." She emerged from the fridge with a crisp-looking apple and took a solemn bite out of it.

Ugh. She was so different from most of the rich people Uma knew. Snow really was surrounding her with the saddest of the privileged.

"So," Evie said, her tone suddenly light, and she walked nearer to Uma and leaned casually against the cabinets, barely an arm's length away. "Do you plan on antagonizing Beast like you antagonized Snow?"

"I've never antagonized Snow," Uma said with a straight face.

"There wasn't a moment during your conversation yesterday that I didn't know for a fact that you wanted to cut him open."

She really was entirely too comfortable just _saying_ things. Had no one ever told her that people who _said_ things got killed or mutilated? Tiana was certainly moving every food item off of the heat so that she could safely abandon them without burning anything, and she left the room abruptly. And she wasn't even the one talking.

"Oh really?" Uma said, pushing her pot of grits back onto one of the unlit stove eyes and making defiant eye contact with Evie. "That's funny; I thought you weren't paying much attention to our meeting."

"I always pay attention," Evie said.

Uma tilted her head, then smiled mirthlessly. "I'll keep that in mind."

"You should." Evie took another bite out of her apple while Uma managed not to grind her teeth over the unnecessarily condescending reply. Apparently Evie liked having the last word.

The shower turned off upstairs.

"I'll ease your concerns," Uma said, just a bit louder and as formally as though she were appearing before a court or council. "I have no ill will towards our brilliant President or our beloved Head Gamemaker."

Evie at first rolled her eyes at what they both knew to be a lie, but then she gave the surroundings a suspicious look, as though it was only now occurring to her that they might be being listened to. At freaking last.

What a charmed life they must have had in District 1. Uma supposed they _were_ less likely to have actionable complaints about their lot, and if most of them weren't angry enough to say anything revolutionary, then they would have no reason to pass on warnings. Even Evie's victor mom likely hadn't seen fit to sit her down and tell her that talking about killing the president while in a house he himself provided wasn't a great way to remain alive. Oh, sure, Snow wouldn't really kill them over these types of private comments, not when they were so _useful_ alive, but if he needed a public reason to execute them for their real offenses, these would be the audio clips he suddenly procured.

Uma grabbed a plate from one of the cabinets and started dishing herself some food. "You sure you only want an apple?"

"I apportion my meals throughout the day in a very specific way," Evie explained. "But thanks for asking."

"A 'very specific way'?"

"To keep to a very specific shape; I've been learning how to keep shape since I was seven years old."

"That's sad. All the kids who come up starving, and you come up starving yourself."

"I didn't starve myself," Evie said briskly. "I managed my diet fastidiously. The more healthful version of what they do here in the Capitol; here, they don't know how to deny themselves pleasures, so they...Well, you know what they do. You've seen, at parties I'm sure."

"I've seen," Uma confirmed, closing the lid on the grit pot.

"Horrible for their teeth," Evie said scathingly. "And they don't do it because of any disorder or anything like that; I've known people with disorders, in District 1. Compulsions. But no, here they just do it so they can _taste_ everything." Evie scoffed. "That is why I learned restraint at a young age."

Uma went to the table with her plate and was pouring herself some milk when Harry and Gil entered the kitchen. "Breakfast is ready," she told them, ignoring the distrustful look Harry was shooting in Evie's direction.

Gil made a beeline for the food on the stove. "So many eggs," he marveled.

"Tiana made a lot today, since you inhaled it all yesterday," Uma said with a teasing look.

"Protein," Evie said, nodding sagely.

"What does that mean?" Harry asked, immediately suspicious.

"...Protein?" she enunciated the word, as though unable to believe that it was unfamiliar to him.

"Aye. That. What does it mean?"

Evie stared at him blankly. "Do you not have _science_ , in District 4?"

"I know _we_ didn't," Gil said, taking Evie's comment at face value (in stark contrast to Harry, who had taken the question only as an insult; it was, as always, a good thing Gil was here). He brought his plate to the table and sat beside Uma. "In 10, school was pretty much all about trade stuff and Panem history."

Evie shook her head, her expression still disbelieving, but dropped the subject.

Rather than take his seat, Harry ate standing up, seemingly just because Evie was standing up and he didn't want her to be able to get the jump on them.

"So," Evie broke the newborn silence, her gaze coolly meeting Harry's, "will it be every night that you keep me up with your piano playing, or was this a special occasion?"

"I didn't think he was playing that much," Gil mused, again taking the question at face value. "Just every now and then."

"I'm not used to people making noise when I'm trying to sleep."

"Well, you used to live alone, right?"

Evie sent Gil a suspicious look, as though trying to figure out if he was planning on making fun of her, but of course he only looked curious. "I did," she confirmed. "And even before I got my own house, Mother wasn't much of a... _music_ person." Seemingly subconsciously, her hand went to smooth at her own hair, even though not a strand was out of place. Uma recognized the tone with which she mentioned her mother; she was sure that she herself used a similar one.

"Well, maybe now you can get into it," Gil suggested.

Evie flashed him a polite smile but appeared unconvinced. "Maybe so."

Uma nearly jumped out of her skin when something furry brushed against her ankle under the table; she let out a quiet yelp and reflexively kicked out, only to hear a plaintive meow in response. She growled, leaned sideways to peer under the table, and ordered, "Move, cat!"

Gray sauntered out from under the table, not even having the decency to obey her quickly. Gil scooped him into his lap and fed him some bacon.

"Do you always feed him that stuff?" Evie asked.

"We don't _always_ do anything; we got him two days ago," Uma said.

"Cats aren't supposed to have that much salt," Evie went on. "You should be more careful about what you feed him."

"Are y'gonna have some correction to make about everything?" Harry asked her.

Evie smiled. "I only correct people when they're incorrect. Maybe you should be right about more things."

Harry didn't react to the insult; only kept up his watchful stance, his head slightly lowered to eat from his plate.

"So what would you feed him?" Uma asked, since discussing the cat's diet seemed like a harmless enough topic, and one that Evie was inexplicably interested in. "Milk?"

"If you want to upset his stomach." Evie took two steps closer to Gil so that she could scratch Gray between the ears. Likewise, Harry drifted defensively closer, and at this point Uma was tired of the tension:

"Will you two sit down?" she demanded. "We're all going to be living here for a while; can we not be at each others throats at breakfast on the first day?"

"I'll sit down when she does," Harry said.

"Standing is good for digestion," Evie said.

"Digestion," Harry repeated scornfully.

"I'm serious." Uma looked at each of them in turn. Evie had on what was clearly her best poker face, and Harry looked grudgingly receptive. "Beast will be here soon- speaking of, Gil, go get dressed." (Gil abandoned his empty plate and left to do as she said.) "This isn't the three of us and then Evie by herself; we're all in this thing together."

"That doesn't mean we have to be friends," Evie said primly. "I told you where we stand last night."

"Yeah, it was some bull then and it's some bull now," Uma told her, and felt satisfied when Evie's expression flashed with anger; at least the ice was broken. "I get it; you don't want to be a pawn. We _will not_ be wielding your fate lightly. But you threatened to kill us."

"Just two of you," Evie said, her tone calm, although the way that she shifted her footing a bit and briefly averted her gaze might have betrayed some remorse. Possibly. Honestly, probably not.

"You were expecting to be at odds," Uma said. "You were expecting to have to fight us." Uma paused to register some sympathy for Evie, who had left her Games in the same state Uma had left hers: alone. No victor lovers to remove her from the market, no close relationships at all (that Uma knew of). And guilt, probably, over the ones whose deaths had earned her this life that she hated. Uma had left the aloneness behind when Harry came along, had escaped (though not unscathed) at least _some_ of the traumatizing realities of victor life, but for Evie, none of it had changed. There would have been no novelty to the wealth; she had come up in Victors' Village, among it. (Far from a reason to pity her, but worth noting all the same.) She hadn't thrown herself into the concept of rebelling (and that was probably a good thing, given her complete lack of discretion). No, she hadn't had those kinds of outlets, those releases. "Maybe your Games never ended," Uma said, "but you're not in the arena anymore. You don't have to wait out or cut through all the other tributes. You can have allies." Uma ended the sentence there, but the implication was clear: _You can have allies, and they don't have to die._

Evie shut her eyes, seeming to take half a second to grieve. Then she turned away to throw out her apple core, and when she was facing Uma again, she was wearing a bright, if somewhat hollow, smile. "I would love to be allies," she said, sitting down across the table from Uma and reaching out to place her hand lightly over Uma's. There was a slight hesitation to the movement that made Uma think she did not willingly touch people often; this was a meaningful gesture to her. Evie tilted her head, her sapphire hair draped over one shoulder and her crimson lips pulling together in a way that was unmistakably apologetic. "But my threat still stands."

 

Adam Beast arrived like he did everything: loudly.

As soon as Ella let him in the door, he was spreading his arms (so widely that Ella had to duck out of his way) and greeting them, in his booming voice, "Here are my victors! Congratulations on your promotion!" He shook each hand (Harry wiped his hand on his pants as soon as Beast was done.), saying "Always a pleasure" and "Even more beautiful I remembered!" and things like that.

"Mr. Beast," Evie greeted, her smile positively sugary. "I see you're wearing the suit I made you."

"No one makes me look as good as you do," Beast proclaimed.

As he always did when Beast was around, Gil found himself trying to look for a single blemish or scar left on the man from his extensive surgeries. Beast's whole initial claim to fame, apart from becoming Head Gamemaker at such a young age, had been the fact that he'd undergone cosmetic surgery to cover himself in long brown fur, as a gimmick to match his name. That had been his whole thing; the fur, the intelligence, the lingering adolescent moodiness that had caused everyone to kind of hate him. Then he'd started dating Belle, and as a gesture of love he had removed the fur (leaving no mark; that was the freakiest part to Gil, that he still couldn't spot a single scar) and, after they were married, adopted a more jovial personality. He no longer went around claiming that everyone was jealous of him for being so successful; no, as a mark of gross overcompensation, now he thought that everybody loved him.

This had all happened before Gil's time, as Beast's son (who, just like Harry had predicted, had come as well) was roughly their age.

"This is Benjamin," Beast introduced his son while clapping him on the back (and the boy sent his father a look as though he would have liked to introduce _himself_ , but didn't think it worth making a fuss). "He's always had a fascination with victors."

"Like father, like son?" Uma noted, earning a laugh from Beast.

"Nice to meet you, Benjamin," Evie greeted, extending a hand to him, and Gil was surprised by the almost flirtatious disposition she was assuming.

"Hi." For his part, Benjamin only appeared slightly flustered. He cleared his throat. "My name is Ben," the boy said politely, apparently deciding to just do the introduction over. He had a pleasant face, and a strangely humble smile, and brown hair that looked very normal, for the Capitol. "It's an honor to meet you four."

"Of course, I talk about you enough, he probably feels he already has," Beast chuckled. "Shall we sit?" He helped himself to their couch.

Ben had the decency to wince at his father's display of entitlement. "May I?" he asked Uma, correctly identifying her as the one to whom requests should be addressed.

"Go ahead," she answered.

Ben went to sit down next to his father. Evie, who had already pulled an armchair into her chosen corner of the room before the visitors had arrived, went to sit in her armchair. Harry, Gil, and Uma seated themselves in their second couch, facing Beast and son, Uma in the middle. Gil's hand found hers instinctively, and they interlocked their fingers together.

"This house must be a dream come true for you victors, mustn't it?" Beast said.

Uma smiled with all of her teeth, then prompted, "President Snow said you had something for us?"

"Oh!" Beast rifled through his pocket for a second and took out a flat, glass object. He held it up for all of them to get a look (Yeah, seemingly just a rectangle of glass...), then he swiped his thumb vertically up the surface, and suddenly the glass was covered in shapes and numbers made of light. "This is a rater. It responds to my fingerprint signature, and yours. The three of you, not Evelyn; she's not authorized to use it."

Evie's expression remained completely still. "Understood," she said simply. If snowflakes falling to the ground for the first time, all quiet and frozen, could be a voice, they would be her voice.

Beast pointed at a zigzagging line at the top of the glass screen. "This graphic gives you the broad strokes; how much buzz you've generated, relative to previous days. If you need a quick image to consult to see whether you've gone up or down, this is what you look at. Below that, we have other metrics and variables: how much of your fame manifests in merchandising, for example, or what percentage of the day's media coverage you've managed to monopolize. If you open this tab here at the bottom, you can peruse your requests. Most of the requests will be, well..." (Beast smiled, trailing off suggestively.) "You're all attractive; it's to be expected. Priority requests will be on _this_ side- that'll be requests from political figures, celebrities, big names, you know -and requests from the general public on _this_ side. It's important to keep the balance there, because priority requests will make more noise if you ignore them, but requests from the general public can determine whether you lose your fanbase. If you lose your base," (He pointed at the top graphic again.) "this line plummets, and no one wants that."

Gil blinked a few times, feeling vaguely dizzy as the Beast continued to run them through the workings of the rater, and as much as he wanted to understand (the better to be of use), he found himself looking, instead, at Ben, whose eyebrows were drawing closer and closer together the longer his father spoke.

"All of that make sense?" Beast asked, handing the rater over to Uma, who immediately started pressing icons and pulling up different tabs of information.

Uma didn't answer for a second, her lips twisted in concentration as she made brisk, though clumsy and clearly unfamiliar, work of the navigation.

"I thought victors were supposed to live in peace after their Games," Ben said, his frown still in place and his voice questioning but not lacking in confidence. "Isn't that the rule?"

The Beast chuckled. "They _are_ living in peace, son. They're hardly getting reaped again, are they?"

"But this job," Ben pressed.

"It's a reward," Beast said patiently. "Did you even watch the president's speech?"

"I watched it," Ben said, a mutinous undertone to his voice that caused Uma's eyes to leave the screen for the first time.

"I know it may not seem like much to _us_ , but for a District-born citizen, this house is the height of luxury."

"That's..." Ben frowned even more deeply.

The Beast, in an uncharacteristic display of awareness, seemed to realize that the train of thought his son was occupying was not a safe one; he brushed over the whole matter, turning to them and saying, "Benjamin has always been entirely too empathetic. The Games gave him nightmares every year until he was sixteen. His mother says it's sweet."

"It is sweet," Evie spoke up.

Uma tilted her head, still eyeing Ben.

"Any nightmares about _my_ Games?" Harry asked, a crooked smile hanging lazily in place.

"The mutt falcons from your year got me," Ben answered, unabashedly. "The eyes, the beaks. You didn't see them..."

"Oh, I saw the footage later, same as everyone," Harry said, with a wave of his hand. "They were well vicious." He cut a quick but pointed glance at Beast, who they all knew was responsible for every danger that entered the arena other than the tributes.

"No nightmares about Harry himself?" Beast asked, oblivious to Harry's glance. " _That_ I would have understood."

"No," Ben mused. "He always seemed more scared than scary to me. He was just a kid, like me."

"So you only fear birds?" Uma finally spoke, and there was a light mocking edge to her flat tone, but no contempt.

"Not just birds," Ben said lightly, taking the ribbing in stride.

"What were your nightmares about my year?"

Ben was utterly candid: "I had a recurring dream where I was cornered in the lake of oil like you were, with enemies swimming towards me. My only choice was to do what you did, but I wasn't brave enough. I couldn't strike the match, even though I knew it was the only way to survive. So the enemies just kept swimming closer and closer until I woke up."

Silence followed his words for only a moment.

"Sounds scary," Uma said, decidedly pitiless.

" _I_ can only imagine."

Gil couldn't help it; he liked Ben. The boy seemed nice, despite his father. He was indignant on their behalf and sympathetic to Harry and Uma, and there was sincerity in his eyes. The sort of sincerity that could possibly get him killed, or mutilated. But then, his dad was Head Gamemaker; Snow wouldn't hurt him.

Yes he would. The moment the inclination struck. This nice guy was not safe.

"Careful, Ben," Beast said heartily. "Hit it off too well, and they just might scoop you up and make you the fourth lover."

"Dad," Ben groaned, dropping his head into his hands.

"Let's get back on track," Beast suggested, grinning still. "Now, President Snow, the precious prescient man who launched all of our careers, obviously had his finger right on the pulse by inviting Evie here ahead of time. When her presence here is made public- and don't worry; Ben and I are sworn to secrecy for now -your requests, both priority and general, are going to blow up. That's good for popularity, but it'll be hard to satisfy that kind of demand. You'll want to make plans to muffle the backlash for the ones you have to disappoint. And as it's Miss Evie we're talking about, I'm sure they'll be _quite_ disappointed."

(Gil felt nauseated by the fact that Beast clearly thought that he was making a lighthearted joke, and dealing Evie some great compliment.)

"They won't be the first," Evie said.

"Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day. At any rate, I've brought a list of victors you should also consider bringing in, so that the full burden of entertainment does not fall on Evie." The Beast produced a folded sheet of paper from inside his blazer and handed it to Uma, who handed it, surprisingly, to Gil.

Gil unfolded the page and skimmed through the names while Uma continued to figure out the rater. His heart sank when he saw Mulan's name; he wondered, dejectedly, how long they would be able to keep her from being dragged into this. "Mulan can't come," he said, without thinking.

"Of course not," Uma said smoothly. "She can't leave her horse behind, and we don't have stables."

Gil let out a relieved breath. "Right."

"Regardless, people like her," Beast said. "The horse is a tertiary concern, if that. She's not too old, she's stayed in shape; that probably won't be true forever. Strike while the iron's hot. Or in her case, I guess...strike while the iron is upward of lukewarm? My point is, she made the list for a reason. She's worth considering."

"It's a long enough list that it shouldn't come to that," Uma said. "The audience would be sad to find out they had to send Mulan's horse to the chop-house; everyone loves that horse." She handed the rater over to Harry, then took the list from Gil.

"I suppose," Beast conceded. "In the scheme of things, I think I would most highly suggest bringing in Jay."

"From District 2?" Gil said.

"He's young, attractive, and charming," Beast said simply. "Most of the more recent victors, obviously excluding the ones in this room, aren't much to look at, aesthetically speaking. Jay's a handsome one, though. Between the five of you, that would be all of the physically attractive victors of the past ten, maybe even fifteen years."

"Isn't that a pretty shallow way of looking at it?" Ben asked.

"Yes," his father answered, then returned his attention to the topic at hand. "Hunger Games season is your off-season, seeing as that would be entirely too much for you to compete with. The Games will be the only thing on _anyone's_ mind. You'll get to relax, enjoy the festivities."

"Lucky us," Harry said quietly.

"That means you only need to sustain the buzz for a few months. Do you three have a plan for how you will introduce Evie's role in the program?"

"When we do, she'll be the first to know," Uma said.

"You have my number. Be sure to keep me in the loop; this is an important job for _all_ of us." There was actually some gravity to Beast's tone, as if the words "important job" might mean the same thing for him that they did for them. But there was still that sort of frivolous disposition with which Beast said everything that made Gil doubt that such a thing could be true, or at least that Beast could be aware of his own vulnerability.

"Actually, I'm not sure we do have your number," Uma mused.

"Oh." Beast blinked, as though surprised. "I could write it down, then."

"We always write things down, and the pieces of paper get lost all over the place, especially with Gil's cat wandering around." Uma snapped her fingers, as though she had just had an idea. "This is a little silly, but do you think you could carve your number on the desk in our study? It's so important; we wouldn't want to lose it."

"Oh, sure," Beast said, fully won over by the premise that Gil had instantly found ridiculous.

"Harry, why don't you show Mr. Beast to our study?" Uma suggested, and then, turning to Beast again, explained, "It's not as big as a study in a _real_ mansion; we wouldn't all fit."

"Of course," Beast said sympathetically, and he followed a decidedly casual-seeming Harry (Was he used to going along with ruses? Was this common for them?) out of the room.

For a second, no one spoke as they took in the absence of Harry and Beast. As they waited to find out exactly what Uma meant by this ploy.

"So Ben," Uma said, and maybe Gil was getting good at reading her, because he was pretty sure just from the look in her eyes that she was mapping out where she wanted this conversation to go. "Write much?"

"...A little," Ben answered, still pleasant and polite but clearly not as oblivious to the contrived nature of Uma's request as his father had been.

Uma smirked. "The callous on the side of your finger says 'a lot'; that's from holding a pen."

Ben smiled, seeming to put aside his wariness in favor of being impressed. "You got that from a handshake?"

"I've been told I'm perceptive," Uma said, then pushed on: "Are you one of those write-all-the-time people? Harry gets like that, with his music. Do you have a notebook, or do you just write on your hand or arm whenever you think of something?"

Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out a small journal, in answer.

"And you didn't even ask for my autograph," Uma chided jokingly. "May I see?"

Ben had only to extend the journal marginally closer before Uma was pulling it from his hand and opening it. She perused it for a while, flipping to pages at random and reading through, and she seemed to come to a decision. Nodding slightly to herself, Uma flipped to a blank page and scrawled out _something_ , using a pen that she apparently kept on her person.

Gil leaned over and read the words she was writing:

_Avoxes used to speak their minds. Burn this page._

The bluntness, the dark and concise truth in the warning, followed by the essential instruction, seemed to hit him in the throat. And it _was_ a warning, and not much more. Nothing that should be truly dangerous; she was not inciting him to rebel, but rather the opposite, and she seemed to have written in as close an imitation of Ben's handwriting as she could (or at least not her own handwriting). And Gil didn't doubt Uma, and he was sure that her judgement was probably a hundred times better than his, and Gil did not want Ben to talk his way into trouble either, but there was a disconnect between what his mind believed in and what his body took to be a danger. Despite all the reasons this shouldn't be a problem, the fear was there.

On the following page, Uma merely signed her name, in exaggerated cursive that was nevertheless unmistakably her own hand. "There," she said simply. "An autograph to prove we met." She shut the journal and handed it back to Ben. "Or just to look at, if you want to feel good about your own handwriting."

There was curiosity in Ben's eyes, suggesting that he understood that there would be a message inside the book when he opened it later, but he merely nodded. "Thanks."

Uma shrugged. "Don't mention it."

Gil swallowed painfully. _Really don't._

 

Mercifully, the meeting with the Beast did not last forever; eventually, he and his unbelievably, almost unpalatably good-natured son left in their car, and the house was lightened in their absence.

(Sure, the Beast's son was less obnoxious than Harry had been expecting, but that was almost worse; the boy didn't even have the human decency to let Harry just hate him on principle. The gall of him.)

Harry, certainly, was eager to get Uma and Gil alone so that he could reveal to them what he had been working on last night, but there was still more to do today. Much more. There were interviews, with lesser personalities than Caesar, and they went rather un-memorably, to Harry anyway. Uma was predictably incredible, Gil was accidentally adorable, and Harry was just slutty enough that Snow wouldn't threaten anybody.

Or that was the hope at least, but then when was Snow fair about anything?

The audiences were smaller, and more excitable, which meant they were less worth giving their all to; their banter alone was enough to blow the roof off the place.

They also had photo shoots, stupidly enough. They were driven to various scholarly buildings and posed around desks, as though hard at work; they were instructed to walk down a few streets (Apparently pictures of them passing familiar shops and corners would give people the delusion that they were present and accessible.) which had been blocked off from public access (to keep them from being rushed by their "fans"- the irony was not lost on Harry).

"Why am I staring at a traffic light?" Gil asked, causing one of the photographers to groan that he had ruined the shot.

"So that you know when to cross," someone answered.

"But the street is empty," Gil protested, clearly confused.

"Just look at the traffic light, please."

"It says we can cross now," Harry put in, just to annoy them. "It's been saying we can cross for about half a minute now."

"Please keep still."

Another few streets over, when they were told to stare excitedly through a bakery's front window, Uma had to speak up, as well:

"Do you guys think we don't have bread in the Districts? We have bread in the Districts. Cake, too; just can't afford it."

"It's symbolic," a cameraperson answered. "You're getting to know the Capitol, up close and personal."

"Won't it seem fake that we're pointing at bread like we've never seen it before?"

"Trust us, dear; we're professionals."

"You don't call her 'dear'," Harry said irately, while at the same time Uma dryly said, "Just 'Uma' is fine."

They got a staged picnic, during which they were told to pretend to laugh and pretend to talk and pretend to cloud gaze and pretend to doze off, and they were not allowed to actually eat any of the food because it was "pretty, but actually very toxic".

As the picnic shoot continued to drag torturously on (because the camera people _insisted_ that they absolutely needed shots with the sun setting behind them), Harry murmured, "I'm gonna do it, love."

"Do what?" Uma asked, her tone dead bored.

Harry picked up the fake food. "I'm gonna eat the sandwich."

Uma stared for only a tick longer, then smirked, snatching the poisonous stuff away, and Gil laughed both at the joke and at her reaction to it, and a camera flashed, and Harry _swore_ to himself that one day any camera brought into his presence would be shattered underfoot.

And then his mood was lightened somewhat by Gil calling out, "Can we be done now? Harry's getting cold," despite Harry not having vocalized his discomfort at all.

"Oh! A campfire!" one of the photographers exclaimed, and all the other photographers lauded the brilliant idea while Harry, Uma, and Gil groaned audibly.

By the time they arrived back at the house, it was dark outside, and Evie was sitting in her armchair in the corner, flipping serenely through a book and eating another hecking apple. She had gone through three just when they were there.

"You're home," she observed neutrally. "Did you make up your minds while you were gone?"

"About what?" Harry asked, weary to find that they were barely through the door and already being interrogated.

"About me," Evie said, her eyes sharp. "Obviously."

"Not yet," Uma said.

"Did you decide what other victor you'll be bringing in?"

"Not yet."

Evie didn't ask anything else, but her gaze on them was cold and accusatory as they gathered into the various couches. Honestly, it wasn't as though they'd _opted_ to fill their day with meaningless fluff that would inevitably be in the way of them doing their actual job.

"What do you guys think?" Uma asked, from her sprawl on one couch with the back of one hand draped across her brow. She removed the list of names from her pocket and unfolded it with her free hand. Of course she was just going to launch right into it; Harry held in a gargantuan groan. "Jay seems resilient, but Beast's right; he's handsome."

"Everyone on Beast's list looks good, though," Gil pointed out. "My brother, Grant, used to be a huge fan of Jay, so I've seen a few of his interviews. He seems like a funny guy."

Gil wasn't wrong; Jay and Caesar had had studio audiences hooting and tearing up with laughter on more than one occasion.

"And he's a survivor," Uma mused. Harry knew, from that tone, that she had a whole pile of other reasons and ideas, all lined up in her head.

"I'm guessing you're sold on him?" he surmised.

"He doesn't have anyone to take care of, that we know about at least. He's not addicted to anything. He doesn't seem to mind visiting the Capitol. He's got a brain on him."

" _In_ him," Evie corrected unnecessarily.

"If we have to get another victor, it's better to get a scrappy survivor than some juggernaut or berserker like most of the victors 2 spits out."

"And..." Gil trailed off, seeming to rethink his words before they were even out.

"What is it?" Uma asked.

"I don't know if it's wrong to say or not."

"Say it, then."

"Our second victor...should be a guy," he said, uncertainly. "If our first two are both women, people like my brothers will start to assume they're all going to be women."

Uma considered for a second, then nodded. "That's true."

Gil appeared relieved to not have made a misstep.

"So we're doing what the Beast _wants_ us to do?" Harry groaned.

"That's our job, isn't it?" Uma said, in an innocent but clipped tone to remind him that they were not in a position to speak openly about their disdain for Beast.

"And what about me?" Evie asked, and though he couldn't be sure, Harry thought he saw her fingernails sinking into the apple, in her tension, carving crescents into the red skin.

"I'm thinking," Uma told her.

"Think out loud."

"We don't want to force you to do anything." Uma removed her hand from her face and sat up. "We don't want _them_ to force you to do anything. We have to figure out how to give them what they want instead of what they ask for. And you're our first victor; you set the tone. If we fall short now, we squander the audience's trust, and that will make it harder for us to have any leeway to decide in the future."

There was no doubt in Harry's mind, now; Evie's fingertips were _denting_ that apple. "Would a fashion show tide them over?"

"I thought about that, but a fashion show isn't new; Snow promised them a new level of availability. After they were told _that_ , a fashion show is a let down. Interviews are a let down."

"Well, it _sounds_ like we're ruling out all of my actual skills," Evie said. "Does that just leave my pretty face?"

Uma gasped suddenly, and her eyes went distant. "No," she said, and Harry sat up, now, because that look meant that she had had a thought. "No, it doesn't."

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"I'm thinking."

Evie left her armchair to instead sit on Uma's couch. "Think out loud," she suggested again.

Uma held up a hand. "The idea isn't done yet. Give me a second."

They all watched her stand up and pace the floor. Gil met Harry's eyes questioningly, and Harry shrugged.

"Will you please say _something?"_ Evie demanded.

"You already said something," Uma said, sounding almost dazed. "This morning."

"She said a bloody lot this morning," Harry snarked. "What's your point?"

"I'm thinking."

Evie sprang to her feet and grabbed Uma firmly by the arms, stopping her pacing, and Harry stood up, too, not because he believed that Evie was an imminent danger, but just because it didn't feel right for him to be sitting down when someone grabbed Uma, even casually.

" _We_ are thinking," Evie said firmly. "Say your thoughts out loud!"

Uma's lips arced into a slight smile. "'Horrible for their teeth'." She said the vague piece-of-a-sentence as though it was significant, some statement that had been made earlier, but Harry was thoroughly _not_ in on it.

Evie seemed to remember, after a second, but not understand. "Yes," she said slowly. "So?"

"So, you correct people when they're incorrect."

 _That_ statement, Harry _did_ remember, but he still didn't yet see the connection. 

"I don't get it," Gil chimed in.

Evie evidently did not quite get it, either, but she seemed closer to getting it than they were, because she was beginning to look intrigued. "Okay?"

Uma turned from her, effectively welcoming Harry and Gil into the conversation. "A fashion show would be too impersonal. People want direct interaction, to feel like they have been personally acknowledged, and she can give them that on her own terms. They don't only want to consume her; some of them want to be her."

"True enough," Harry conceded, becoming steadily frustrated by his own confusion. Uma caught his eye for a second with a comprehending look that caused him to relax just a little bit. Of course, when they were at their house in District 4, she could just spit things out, say what the idea was without prefacing with the explanation or justification, but here she had to present her plan to not only Evie, but in an oblique sort of way, to Snow as well. If he was listening.

"What if Evie was able to get these...health tips...out of her system on a public stage? People in the Capitol could brag about following the Evie Grimhilde diet; the extra special ones could say that Evie herself drafted a personalized meal plan for them." (Evie was nodding more and more as Uma spoke, a brightness in her eyes that they had not seen there before.) "We could even bring in your fashion skills; you could make people over. Saturate them that way."

"Do you mean satiate?" Evie asked.

"I do not."

"Okay. Okay..."

Harry felt doubtful that Snow would allow something so tame, but Evie appeared thoroughly onboard:

"Call Beast," she said with alacrity.

Uma hesitated, her eyes doing that telltale thing where they appeared to read the air in front of her.

"What?" Evie asked.

Uma met Harry's gaze again and said, as though she could read his mind, "It isn't enough. It won't be enough. We need more."

"So bring Jay in, then," Evie said impatiently. Now that she had been given hope, it seemed that her lofty demeanor was put away. Her hands were balled into excited fists in front of her; her lips were pinched, her eyes widened, and her eyebrows angled in such a way that it seemed she was managing to frown without wrinkling any part of her face.

"We can't just bring him in without some kind of plan; now is the time to get ahead of these things."

Evie's nostrils flared for a second, but she did not argue. She merely turned on her heels and sat primly back down in her armchair. "I guess I'll just wait."

"Maybe we could have Jay tell jokes," Gil suggested. "Like, onstage or something. Since he's good at it."

"We're back to 'impersonal'," Uma said.

"I don't see why we can't just ask him here first and then figure out what sort of spectacle works for him when he arrives," Harry said.

"Because if we're only coming up with ideas in real time, any setback will put us behind," Uma said. "We have a bit of breathing room now, because the program's only beginning and we still have the buzz surrounding Snow's announcement and last night's interview to keep us safe for a little while. Now is the time to plan our approach, as far in advance as we can."

The room was silent for over a minute as everyone apparently retreated to their thoughts. In the quiet, Harry found his mind returning to the statement that had bothered him- and wasn't "bothered" a light word -hours ago: the Beast's offhand announcement that the Games would be their off-season. Of course it made sense. Of course the ones in charge wouldn't want their "noise" distracting from this year's new horror, but...

But the voice of dread still spoke to Harry, saying _Snow wants you to see. He wants you to watch, because it'll be CJ._ His heart beat too fast, and his fingers followed the rhythm, thumping against his knee, following the keys of a piano that wasn't there.

"I wrote a new song," he said hoarsely, breaking the silence.

Uma sat up; at some point she had returned to her sprawl with her hand over her face. Gil, too, turned to Harry, his expression unabashedly anticipatory.

"So?" Evie asked, and her coolly derisive tone was actually a little funny.

"Can we hear it?" Uma asked, ignoring Evie.

"Come have a listen," Harry said, grinning.

"I'm going to my room," Evie huffed, and did just that. Probably for the better; Harry felt that his song was probably more of an inner-circle affair.

They proceeded to the music room. Harry sat down on the piano bench once he'd ensured the door was closed behind them.

"It doesn't have lyrics yet; just a melody," he said, _while_ handing them the completed lyric sheet; best to keep Snow on his toes.

He played the notes for just the words instead of the accompaniment, but the whole song played in his mind:

_Good fortune ebbs and flows_  
Like the breath of the tide  
Let it come, let it go  
Back to the sea 

_Lady Moon reels the bounty_  
From the flooded to the dry  
Til no bucket nor bowl  
Comes up empty 

_We toss seeds into the ocean_  
That they wash into a garden  
Far away, far away  
If need be 

_Let crest the wave of fortune_  
We’re along for the ride  
The turning, churning ocean  
We ride with the tide  
As recedes the wave of fortune  
We’re along for the ride  
The living, giving ocean  
We ride with the tide 

_The small wading child can see_  
He can’t influence the waves  
So in young wisdom he  
Never tries it 

_While the ship with every man_  
Quite as feeble as the child  
Ventures out and dares the sea  
To capsize it 

_They know even the ocean_  
In its volatile motion  
Is worth only what does  
Comprise it 

_Let crest the wave of fortune_  
We’re along for the ride  
The turning, churning ocean  
We ride with the tide  
As recedes the wave of fortune  
We’re along for the ride  
The living, giving ocean  
We ride with the tide  
We ride. 

He played the last note and then lifted his finger slowly off of it, turning to face Uma and Gil, who were still looking down at the lyric sheet. He felt slightly apprehensive. As far as construction was concerned, he had certainly written better songs. He had deliberately made this one just floofy enough to become popular in the Capitol, while retaining enough substance to actually mean something to people who were really listening. But maybe it had sounded better in his head last night, when the concept was new and the inspiration was raw and he was tired enough to let anything pass. In truth, he was probably most excited about the line "We ride with the tide", simple though it was. To him, it sounded like allegiance, commiseration, maybe unity if he was being a sap about it. He could imagine those words being used in any way, whispered or shouted.

Gil was the first to look up, his face flushed with awe that caused a smile to shape Harry's lips.

"It's beautiful," Gil said earnestly.

Uma's eyes were still glued to the page. "It's brilliant," she said, and Harry's smile widened. "You're brilliant." She seemed to read through all of the lyrics over again.

"It's not properly finished," Harry said, scratching at the back of his neck. Uma was always a well of feedback; when she was silent for any length of time, he knew that he would be receiving a great fountain of it, and the anticipation was killing him. He hoped his metaphors had come across clearly enough. Well enough executed. Was it too blatant? Unfocused? He had only written it out in one night; there were improvements that could be made. Maybe the rhythm was off in some places, or the rhymes forced. But then, she had seen enough of his rough drafts to be used to that. "I may add or leave out some bits..."

"I trust your process," Uma assured him, and now her eyes did leave the page. They met his, full of enthusiasm and intrigue and pride. "This is brilliant. We should sit on this for a while; only release it when it's the right time. The right...context."

Harry could feel himself puffing up; he couldn't help it. If the song was worth saving for the right time, then that meant she _loved_ it. Still fishing for more detailed compliments (as he always did), Harry asked, "So you liked it?"

Uma smirked knowingly. She glanced around the room to remind them that she couldn't speak aloud, then rose and said, "I'll get a pen and pad." And then she stroked his hair, and he went positively liquid against her.

 

District 2 did not much value sneaking around.

It was a very direct culture. Everyone who wasn’t an on-duty Peacekeeper was still following orders of some kind, and that didn’t leave room for cunning or for finding one’s own roundabout way of doing things. And when you were a kid, it was all about the Games. Everything was. Food was for muscle, all types of play were really weapons training or stamina training, and school provided both and instilled discipline.

They intimidated, and fought, and vied for power all out in the open. So Jay’s penchant for mischief had not been appreciated, in his youth.

He had been a disastrous child, as his school reports had delicately put it. He had squirmed whenever they’d tried to cut his hair (and that was only after hiding from them failed), he had spoken out of turn, he had been a notorious breaker of rules.

They had chalked it up to genetics, most of them; his father was infamous for having been cast out of some high-ranking office within the District. A disgrace.

And so, as a child, Jay had been the rascal, the labrat with which other children experimented with defying authority; they had dared him to commit various offenses, just to see what would happen. Usually it had been just stealing, or pulling the fire alarm; petty stuff, with utterly disproportionate punishments.

One person had dared him to steal the principal’s necktie while he was wearing it, and he had, only to be summoned back to the office in a thundering voice soon after (…but for those forty-nine seconds, boy, he had been on top of the world).

Then one year, his name had been called for the reaping, and there had been murmurs but no shouts. No one had volunteered- not for the glory, not to save him, not for anything. There weren’t always volunteers, but Jay couldn't help thinking that the reason no one had volunteered _that_ year was the same reason that no one had confessed to daring him to steal the principal’s tie: They wanted to see what kind of trouble Jay could get himself into this time, with these raised stakes.

When he _won_ the Games, well, that was just Jay. In and out of trouble with a mischievous smile. Wisecracking on a national stage, now, where it was appreciated instead of punished. No one in 2 could say anything to him, now, about keeping his hair short or being an upstanding citizen; he had brought honor to the District already. Even his father only got a few dirty looks in public; no sneers or rude words, however much the old viper clearly deserved them.

So when, say, Jay slipped into an alleyway between shops, climbed a fire escape, and people-watched from a rooftop, no one yelled at him to get down from there or called him a delinquent. He was Jay. He had done his part already.

Which was why he was surprised when he heard someone calling his name.

"Jay?! Jay!"

He leaned over the roof's side and saw...Taran. The annoying guy who never shut up about how one day he would become a Peacekeeper. He and Jay had been grouped together in school a lot, because Taran was also a troublemaker (although his troublemaking came from caring _too_ much instead of not enough), so Jay had grudgingly become his protection from bullies. Nowadays, Taran just sort of...showed up sometimes.

"What do you want?" Jay replied.

"I was just at your house-"

"Eating my food."

"Practicing in your yard." Taran crossed his arms indignantly. "My point is, there are some Peacekeepers waiting for you there."

"Thanks for warning me," Jay said, with a cheeky grin. "Guess I'm crashing here for tonight."

"No, they're _serious_ , Jay."

"They're always serious."

"They say they have some message for you."

"What message?"

"I don't know; go ask them."

"Nah. If they're local, they know where to find me."

"Do you have to be impossible all of the time?"

"You're the one shouting in public. Come up the fire escape, you hoodlum."

"I'm going to tell them where you are." And he left.

Taran was the worst. He was 'Sir, yes, sir' meets 'I want to be a hero!'. The only reason he hadn't ever volunteered at a reaping was because he knew that being a victor would interfere with his ultimate ambition. With his headstrong attitude, he would probably never be a Peacekeeper, but he would also never give anyone peace if he was forced to be anything else.

Eventually, the Peacekeepers (four of them) did come, and they called him down. Jay followed them back to his house. He had been getting bored anyway, and trying to make casual conversation with the stodgy uniformed men and women on the walk home was at least entertaining. Something wasn't quite right, though. These Peacekeepers weren't local; he could tell from the way they navigated. And they stiffened almost imperceptibly whenever they passed by Peacekeepers who Jay _recognized_. Maybe they were new to the job, but he doubted it. Something was up.

When they entered the house, there were four more Peacekeepers waiting there. Also wrong; squads of Peacekeepers always came in groups of two, four, five, or intervals of ten. Eight, never.

"Where are the other two?" he asked, crossing his arms.

The Peacekeepers all exchanged a look.

"In the study, with your message," one replied.

Jay looked around himself warily, then shrugged and sauntered toward the house's study. Worse case scenario: ambush. But he was quick on his feet, so he would probably be fine. Or he'd fight them. Or he'd die, but he doubted that. Really, at this point, the only course of action worth anything to him was progressing through whatever sort of encounter this became. He opened the study door and entered the room.

Where he saw a familiar face sitting at his (extremely unused) desk with her feet up. "You kept us waiting," she drawled.

Jay was only barely surprised; he nodded as everything began to make sense. The wrong Peacekeeper behavior, the wrong squad size- still wrong, since she was the only one waiting in this room. "Well, Taran said you were Peacekeepers."

"That was the idea. That's why they stole the uniforms; so we could get around without any suspicion."

"Hope you have a helmet," he quipped, because uniform or not, a purple-haired Peacekeeper wouldn't have exactly gone unnoticed, whereas the rest of her people actually looked like they subscribed to some kind of discipline, at least in the follicular department.

"Yeah. And if my mom finds out I came here, she'll be very pissed, so let's cut to the chase." She sat forward, now with her feet on the floor and her elbows on the desk. The desk lamp made her skin look moonishly pale, but then Jay was fairly certain she hadn't seen much of the sun in her formative years. "Our sources tell us you might be the second one dragged into Snow's 'Sisyphus Reward' thing. Who the first is, we don't know yet, but-"

Jay cackled. "Has Lover Boy been blurting out national secrets again?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't call him that. And we got to talking when I caught him accidentally setting his trash can on fire."

"Whoa, careful; he's starting to sound like your type. So, you came all the way to District 2 just to warn me that Snow might make Uma Triskelion pimp me out?"

"The journey wasn't that far; don't flatter yourself. Just keep your eyes and ears open, if they do send for you. And if you learn anything while you're in that house, we'd like you to share it with us. Uma has proven to be full of surprises."

Jay didn't comment on her almost smug expression, even though it told him a lot. "You do know I don't actually work for you guys?"

"You basically do." She waved a dismissive hand.

"Really? And your mom knows about me?"

As expected, she shut down, and Jay only slightly regretted asking. He had never met her mother; he had never met most of her people. He only knew _her_ because they both had a habit of sneaking off to well-concealed places during Capitol parties. They had similar senses of humor, and he had gathered some things about her that he wasn't supposed to know, so they had ended up becoming close friends. Or at least closer than Taran. Close enough that he didn't rat her out and she didn't kill him for knowing about her.

"You have your mission." She stood, dusting herself off with a haughty little smirk and putting her helmet on. "See you around."

"Don't get caught," he said, which was about as much genuine affection as he knew how to express with words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this came out decently. 
> 
> The phrase "gargantuan groan" sounds like it should be either a Lemony Snicket title or a Harry Potter title, and as such nothing could make me change it even as I edited everything else.
> 
> But forrealsies, hope this was coherent and entertaining. 
> 
> (Also, one of these days I really need to stop trying to write songs, lol. Or at least I need to stop writing stories that necessitate not only songwriting but _good_ songwriting. So, if that song was straight up lukewarm garbage, just suspend your disbelief and pretend that Harry actually wrote something awesome. In the universe of the story, it's a good song, my own abilities notwithstanding.)
> 
> Please comment!


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